Snap the Whip

A line of barefoot boys tears across a summer field in a game called "Snap the Whip," where kids lock hands and run while the leaders swing hard to fling those at the tail end off their feet. Winslow Homer caught the exact moment the chain snaps, with two boys sprawling into the grass on the left as the rest lean and strain to keep their grip. Behind them sits a little red one-room schoolhouse under a big cloudy sky, the whole scene painted in warm greens and dusty browns that feel like a real day in the country.

Homer made this in 1872, only a few years after the Civil War, when a lot of Americans were aching for simpler times. The schoolhouse and the wide open field carried a gentle nostalgia for country life that was slowly slipping away as cities and factories took over. Homer taught himself most of what he knew and began his career as a magazine illustrator, which helps explain his knack for freezing action and telling a whole story in one glance. Folks loved the picture so much that he painted a second version of it, and it has stuck around ever since as a favorite image of American boyhood.