Thomas Eakins: The Heroism of Modern Life

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00346

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23363

Why did Thomas Eakins, now considered the foremost American painter of the nineteenth century, make portraiture his main field in an era when other major artists disdained such a choice? With a rich discussion of the cultural and vocational context of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Elizabeth Johns answers this question.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK:
"The publication of Thomas Eakins: The Heroism of Modern Life by Elizabeth Johns is an event of some importance, for I believe that this is one of the best studies ever written about an American painter. . . . [The main] chapters function as studies of individual pictures, but they are woven with such great skill that they reflect on nearly all of Eakins's major works and they deal with many of the important issues about him. "—Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., The New York Times Book Review

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Print publication date January 1984 (in print)

Print ISBN 9780691002880

EISBN 9780300273441

Illustrations 142

Print Status in print

Publisher (in print)

WorldCat

Google Books

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List of illustrations

Portrait of Thomas Eakins
Thomas Eakins as a Young Man
Charles Baudelaire
Thomas Carlyle
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Samuel Johnson
Carl Frederic Abel
Alphonse Leroy
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Rush
The Studious Artist
Dante
John Taylor Johnston (1820–1893)
Juan Martinez Montanes
Las Meninas
The Little Confectioner
The Champion Single Sculls (Max Schmitt in a Single Scull)
The Champion Single Sculls (Max Schmitt in a Single Scull), detail
Sketch of Girard Avenue Bridge
Sketch of an oar (verso of Sketch of Girard Avenue Bridge)
Perspective Drawing for The Pair-Oared Shell
Match between Eton and Westminster Rowed at Putney August 1, 1843: The Eton winning by fourteen boats length
Henry Clasper, Champion of the North of Derwenthaugh by Newcastle on Tyne
James Hammill and Walter Brown, in their Great Five Mile Rowing Match for $4000 and the Championship of America
Barnes Bridge
Elliott's Boat
Picked Crew of London Rowing Club
Harry Kelley
Walter Brown, American champion
A View of Fairmount Waterworks with Schuylkill in the Distance Taken from the Mount
Boat Race, Boston Harbor
The Rowing Courses Used on the Schuylkill River
The Biglin Brothers Racing
John Biglin in a Single Scull
The Pair-Oared Shell
Bufford's Comic Sheet - No. 419
Portrait of Dr. Samuel D. Gross (The Gross Clinic)
Portrait of Dr. Samuel D. Gross (The Gross Clinic), detail
Sketch for The Gross Clinic
Study for the Head of Professor Gross
Study of the Head of Robert C. V. Meyers
Portrait of Benjamin Howard Rand, M.D.
The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp
An operation at Massachusetts General Hospital
Guillaume Dupuytren (1777–1835), at the Hôtel-Dieu, presented Charles X with an eye surgery
Marie-François Bichat
Vesalius at Padua in 1546
The Museum of Charity Hospital (Scenes from the Salle de garde)
Velpeau teaching at the Charité hospital
Ambroise Paré Applying Ligatures after an Amputation
The Gross Clinic
Ward of Model Post Hospital, Medical Department, showing The Gross Clinic installed
Dr. William Thomson
The Agnew Clinic
William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River
William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River, detail
Water Nymph and Bittern or Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River
Centre Square
Allegory of the Waterworks (The Schuylkill Freed)
Fairmount Waterworks, From the Forebay
Fountain and Stand-Pipe
George Washington
Self-Portrait
Installation of Rush's Nymph with Bittern in Fairmount Park near the Callowhill Street Bridge
Fourth of July in Centre Square
Woman with Parasol (Walking Dress)
Wax studies for William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River
William Rush Carving the Allegorical Figure of the Schuykill River (study)
The Painter's Studio
Michelangelo in His Studio
Rembrandt Etching a Plate
The Artist in His Museum
The Painter's Triumph
A Sculptor's Studio
The Artist and His Model
Interior of David's studio at the Collège des Quatre Nations (now Institut de France), Paris
The Women's Life Class
William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River (Study for painting of the same title)
Tenth Street Studio
William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River
Sketch for William Rush and His Model
William Rush and His Model
Rehearsal of the Pasdeloup Orchestra at the Cirque d'Hiver
The Orchestra at the Opera
The Hollingsworth Family
At the Piano
Miss Dihau at the piano
Home Scene
Frances Eakins
At the Piano
Elizabeth at the PIano
Professionals at Rehearsal
The Cello Player
Luigi Boccherini
Cellist Pilet
F. A. Kummer
Music
Arrangement in Black: Portrait of Señor Pablo de Sarasate
The Piping Shepherd
John Laurie Wallace, Nude, Playing Pipes
Study for boy reclining in Arcadia
Arcadia
Pastoral
The Artist's Wife and His Setter Dog
The Singer in Green
Singing a Pathetic Song
The Organ Rehearsal
Cowboy Singing
Home Ranch
The Concert Singer
The Concert Singer, showing carving on frame
Clara Louise Kellogg as Aïda
Portrait of an Opera Singer
Parepa Rosa Reynolds
Walt Whitman
The Writing Master
Portrait of Henry Ossawa Tanner
Frank Hamilton Cushing
Professor Henry A. Rowland
Portrait of Leslie W. Miller
Portrait of Rear Admiral George Wallace Melville
Salutat
Antiquated Music (Portrait of Sarah Sagehorn Frishmuth)
An Actress (Portrait of Suzanne Santje)
Archbishop Diomede Falconio
Dr. Horatio C. Wood
Portrait of Mrs. J. William White
Portrait of Mrs. C. (Lady with a White Shawl)
New England Woman
Portrait of Walt Whitman
Portrait of Dr. Jacob M. Da Costa
Portrait of Dr. Jacob M. Da Costa
The Dean's Roll Call
William Smith Forbes, M.D.
Portrait of Dr. Jacob M. Da Costa
William Williams Keen, Jr., M.D.
Letitia Wilson Jordan
Mrs. Edith Mahon
Portrait of Mrs. Thomas Eakins
Portrait of Mary Adeline Williams
The Old-Fashioned Dress (Portrait of Helen Montanverde Parker)
Self-Portrait

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Contents

Contents

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23364

Free

List of Illustrations

List of Illustrations

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23365

Dimensions of Eakins’ Works

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Dimensions of Eakins’ Works

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23366

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Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23367

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Preface

THIS STUDY examines Thomas Eakins in the cultural context of his era, late nineteenth-century America...

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23368

Chapter 1: Eakins, Modern Life, and the Portrait

THOMAS EAKINS was a painter of portraits. Financially independent, he followed a drumbeat from 1870 to 1910 that guided virtually no other contemporary major artist, either of America or of Europe...

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.3-18

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00346.1

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23369

Chapter subject tags:Eakins, Thomas, 1844-1916Civilization, Modern--19th centuryPortrait paintingPainting--Technique

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Chapter 2: Max Schmitt in a Single Scull, or The Champion Single Sculls

GLAD TO BE home after such a long apprenticeship, Eakins began his career with scenes of activities that he had missed in Paris—the outdoor pursuits of rowing, hunting and sailing with his father and close friends, and the indoor pleasures...

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.19-45

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00346.2

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23370

Chapter subject tags:Eakins, Thomas, 1844-1916Painting--TechniqueSchuylkill River (Pa.)

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Chapter 3: The Gross Clinic, or Portrait of Professor Gross

THE EARLY years of the 1870s saw radical changes in the fabric of national life. With economic and psychological recovery from the Civil War hardly resolved, Americans were faced with tides of immigrants, employment in factories...

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.46-81

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00346.3

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23371

Chapter subject tags:Eakins, Thomas, 1844-1916. Gross ClinicMedical sciences--Study and teachingPainting--TechniqueGross, Samuel D. (Samuel David), 1805-1884

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Chapter 4: William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River

ABOUT THE same time that Eakins began his portrait of Dr. Gross, he made preliminary sketches for William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River...

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.82-114

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00346.4

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23372

Chapter subject tags:Eakins, Thomas, 1844-1916Rush, William, 1756-1833Artists' modelsPainting--Technique

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Chapter 5: The Concert Singer

FROM HIS earliest years Eakins had been drawn to music, the most fleeting and intangible of experiences. Throughout a career that brought him perhaps more than his share of public affronts...

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.115-143

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00346.5

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23373

Chapter subject tags:Eakins, Thomas, 1844-1916Musicians in artPastoral artCowboys--Songs and music

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Chapter 6: Walt Whitman

IN 1887 EAKINS’ friend the Philadelphia journalist Talcott Williams took him to meet Walt Whitman at Whitman’s house in Camden...

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.144-169

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00346.6

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23374

Chapter subject tags:Eakins, Thomas, 1844-1916Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892Portrait paintingHeroesPainting--Technique

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