Dans le silence de la nuit : obscurité et métaphore raciale dans Searchlight on Harbor Entrance de Winslow Homer

In the Silence of the Night : Darkness and Racial Metaphor in Searchlight on Harbor Entrance by Winslow Homer. This paper focuses on Winslow Homer’s Searchlight on Harbor Entrance : Santiago de Cuba (1901), a painting created in reference to a crucial episode in the Spanish-American war. It describes the blockade of the port of Santiago by the American fleet, which were equipped with electric searchlights strategically pointed at the Spanish ships. Whereas this nocturne landscape has been read by its critics as a meditative work, characterized by its detachment, this study tries to consider the painting within the context of its contemporary visual culture in an effort to make its political and historical contents apparent. It examines the metaphor of light and darkness as it was used in the rhetoric of U.S. imperialism, particularly its racial dimensions, in order to re-evaluate Searchlight beyond the limitations of its critical reception.