Focus On: Thomas Eakins

Heads up. I'm deviating from my traditional art of the week format by showing something that is not in the Indiana University Art Museum, but is instead something we looked at in class. Thomas Eakins was a Gilded Age painter, centered, as so many were, in Philadelphia. Probably his most famous work is The Gross Clinic (1875), a portrait of Dr Gross, a widely respected professor at Jefferson Medical College, who is operating on a patient and explaining the process to the doctor-students in the audience. (Sidenote: what is trippin' me out about American art is that we know the NAMES of these people! Like we know who the anesthesiologist was. Of course you know names in older art too, but I'm not used to having so much proof, or at least, proof that I can read..)

Eakins is a tricky artist to explain. Born to an upper class family and French-trained, he seems to have the world handed to him with minimal effort on his part. He lived at the family estate for his whole life and did most of his works not as commissions, but as gifts to people, especially his portraits--he was no starving artist. However, he had some hurdles to overcome, mostly of his own making. He believed that people were waaay too prudish about nude bodies, and that nude modeling was something to be embraced by artists. He believed, in a sense, that artists were like surgeons--his logic being, you would disrobe for a surgeon because it's their job, so there was nothing wrong with doing the same in an art class. Hence, his interest in Dr Gross, dissections, and the medical world.

Eakins was fired from the Pennsylvania Academy of Art in 1886 for a variety of reasons. He believed women should attend nude modeling classes too (good) because he thought women should receive the same training as men (good!) even though he concurrently believed that they could never be great painters (bad). He never asked his students to do things he wouldn't do himself (good), and one day disrobed in front of a class of female students (bad; did not go over well). He exposed himself (bad!!!) to a female student in his office (really bad) because she said she had an anatomical question, and he "showed" her. I honestly think that he saw nothing wrong in his actions, and he didn't understand how those actions would appear to other people. Then you get into the thorny issue of power relations. Did he coerce his female students into modeling, did he do the same for male students, was he just ahead of his time? I think he has been unfairly vilified by some scholars, but I also find his compulsive interest in the body (all bodies--men, women, even children) very disturbing.

Anyway! All this is just a precursor to the real point of this post: Thomas Eakins' later portraits. After his dismissal, he turned almost exclusively to portraiture, mostly of single figures whom he knew, or people whose work he admired, especially scientists and musicians. The majority of these works are, for lack of a better word, melancholy. (For example, see from 1890, Amelia van Buren, Edith Mahon from 1904, or his own Self-Portrait from 1902. An article we read links this to his dejected mental state--that he was inserting his emotions into portraits of others--which I have doubts about because I don't like psychoanalyzing people who can no longer speak for themselves.) Some of the portrayed people disliked the works so much that they had him repaint them, while some went so far as to hide the works in their attic, ala Dorian Grey. Eakins did not gloss over his sitters imperfections. He was, if anything, too honest (because he wasn't being paid for it, so why not?). While his private portraits are introspective, his works of scientists and musicians are much more gregarious. Case in point: The Concert Singer.The Concert Singer, 1890-1892, now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art

The singer depicted here is Weda Cook, a well-known performer who was on friendly terms with Eakins. She is shown here mid-song, in a dress of her own design. I like Eakins' portraits for his details--the hair that curls slightly away from her face, the sumptuous brocaded fabric, and the color coordinated roses (thrown by an admiring fan, presumably) and the conductors arm. The best part of this work, however, is the frame. It's hard to see here, but the musical phrase/aria she is singing is etched onto the lower band of the frame. It is "Oh Rest in the Lord" from Mendelssohn's oratorio Elijah. We know this because Eakins wanted us to know. He designed the frame, which is something that he also did for a scientist-portrait of Henry Rowland (1897).

Weda Cook said that Eakins made her sing the phrase, "Oh Rest in the Lord" over and over so that he could paint her throat right. We decided in class that she was probably on the "Lord" part by the shape of her mouth, but you can decide for yourself! My professor forwarded along some videos of the song, and I think this one is the loveliest sounding, although it is just a still photo instead of a proper video.

So listen to it, and, as my professor suggested, look at The Concert Singer while doing so. And imagine that it is Philadelphia, 1890, and you are seeing this in a concert hall before heading out into the frosty February air for a late supper with friends. You are hungry, but as you listen to Weda Cook in her pink frock, time stops, you forget about dinner, and all you want to do is stare at this woman and hear her song. Eakins, no matter his faults, can give us that vision 120 years after the fact. And that is pretty cool.