The Bathe at Newport

After the Civil War, Newport became a primary summer resort for the wealthiest elite, whose rivalry in building summer mansions created the extraordinary architectural display that draws visitors today. Homer’s view focuses on a crowd of less exalted visitors, however, who frolic in the surf with abandon, as the text notes: “The fortunate few who have mingled in the gay bathing parties at Newport may seek for their likenesses in the picture which represents a dip in the surf. . . . Such pictures need no text. They tell their own story.”