Science in the Arts
American Old Master:
The Art and Science of Thomas Eakins
Marek H. Dominiczak*
In the second half of the 19th century, American painting was changing. The scene dominated by the landscapists became enriched by figurative painting, mostly
by painters who had trained in Europe. The number of
paintings exhibited by American artists, both within
the USA and abroad, was quickly increasing, and artists
were taking up American themes more often (1, 2 ).
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (1844 –1916) was a
Philadelphia man. He was born there and remained
associated with the city for his entire life. From the very
beginning his training was geared toward the figurative. At the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,
Eakins first drew from antique casts, as was the custom
in art schools at that time, and attended lectures on
anatomy, beginning in 1862. Later, he went to life
drawing classes and attended courses on anatomy and
dissection at the Jefferson Medical College (3 ).
Between 1866 and 1870, Eakins studied in Paris at
the École des Beaux-Arts, where he drew extensively
from the nude and worked in the atelier of Jean-Léon
Gérôme (4 ). Gérôme painted highly finished neoclassicist images in a technically accomplished academic
style. For a short time Eakins also worked with realist
portrait painter Léon Bonnat (4 ). He later traveled to
Spain, where he acquainted himself with the work of
Velázquez.
Eakins returned to Philadelphia in 1870 and continued to develop as a figurative painter. In 1874, he
attended surgical demonstrations by Dr. Samuel David
Gross and in 1875 created a painting of one such demonstration, which he named The Gross Clinic (5, 6 ).
This picture of Dr. Gross and his assistants, performing
surgery, introduced a theme of a man in his working
environment, to which Eakins frequently returned. The
Gross Clinic was not what the “elegant” public expected; it was rejected from the Centennial Exhibition in
Philadelphia as “unsightly.” It still was shown on the
exhibition grounds, however, in the United States Post
Hospital (5 ).
College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow,
UK.
* Address correspondence to the author at: Department of Biochemistry, Gartnavel General Hospital, Glasgow G12 0YN, UK. Fax ⫹44-141-211-3452; e-mail
[email protected].
480 Clinical Chemistry 58:2 (2012)
Eakins began to teach art students. In 1876, he
worked as an unpaid instructor at life classes at the
Philadelphia Sketch Club. He then joined the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts as assistant to Christian
Schussele, a neoclassical painter who in 1868 had become the first professor at the Academy. He also assisted the anatomist Dr. William W. Keen. Eakins became professor of drawing and painting at the
Academy in 1878 and its director of schools in 1882
(7 ).
Eakins was a passionate educator. By focusing the
training on nude model drawing and painting, the
study of anatomy, and dissections, he revolutionized
the curriculum of the Academy. He rejected drawing
from casts. Remarkably, Eakins was also fascinated by
photography, then at its early stages of development
(8 ). He saw photography as an essential tool for figure
and motion studies and as a key aid to teaching. For a
time Eakins collaborated with the eminent photographer Eadweard Muybridge (9 ), who visited Philadelphia in 1883. Both artists conducted photographic
studies of human and animal movement. This work led
to Eakins’s famous work History of a Jump, which was
exhibited in 1886 (10 ). Eakins also had a deep interest
in anatomy. In 1894, he delivered a paper, “The Differential Action of Certain Muscles Passing More Than
One Joint,” before the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences.
Unfortunately, his focus on the painting of nudes
caused difficulties. Parents of students protested
against the use of nude models. Eakins eventually lost
the support of the Academy’s Committee of Instruction, and in 1886, after he had removed the loincloth of
a male model in a class where women were present, he
was asked to resign. Incidentally, his popularity among
the students was such that 38 of them left the Academy
and formed the Art Students’ League of Philadelphia,
where Eakins subsequently taught. The dismissal from
the Academy at the peak of his academic career was a
major blow from which Eakins never fully recovered
(11 ). He did reinvent himself artistically by concentrating on portrait painting. He remained within the Philadelphia academic milieu socially, and his portraits include those of academics, doctors, and churchmen. He
was commissioned to paint several portraits outside
Science in the Arts
Fig. 1. Thomas Eakins.
The Agnew Clinic, 1889, oil on canvas, 84 3/8 ⫻ 118 1/8 inches. ©Geoffrey Clements/CORBIS. Reproduced with permission.
Philadelphia, notably the portrait of Walt Whitman,
which Whitman particularly appreciated (12 ).
In 1889, students in the medical school commissioned from Eakins a portrait to celebrate the retirement of Dr. D. Hayes Agnew, professor of principles
and practice of surgery (13 ). The painting represents
Dr. Agnew performing a mastectomy at the University
of Pennsylvania Medical Department (Fig. 1). Eakins
took only 3 months to create the painting. It is his largest work, and its composition is similar to that of The
Gross Clinic. The surgical practice shown is quite different, however. In 1867, Joseph Lister had published
the groundbreaking article “On the Antiseptic Principle in the Practice of Surgery.” Lister then had traveled
to America in 1876. The aseptic technique had extended the scope of surgery (14 ), and white coats and
face masks were introduced in the 1880s. The surgeons
are gowned in The Agnew Clinic, but not in the painting
of Dr. Gross. Dr. Agnew’s assistants and most of the
people shown in the picture can be identified. Eakins
painted himself at the very lower right edge of the picture. The painting was presented to the medical school
by the graduating class on May 1, 1889 (15 ).
Eakins was fascinated more by human individuality than by classical ideals of beauty. He was a realist
who was not interested in academic decorative nudes.
For Eakins, observation was essential, and he made
elaborate preparations, multiple sketches, and photographs for his paintings. His Study of Seated Nude
Woman Wearing a Mask, painted in the 1860s, shows
uncompromisingly realist form (16 ). Eakins’s realism
was strengthened by his attraction to science and anatomy, and was further aided by his use of photography.
Paradoxically, this “scientific” exactness might have
contributed to the low popularity of his work, which
was the case experienced for most of his life. His realism
contrasted with the flamboyant elegance of paintings of
another American portraitist, Merrit Chase (17 ). During Eakins’s only solo exhibition, in 1896 in Philadelphia, no works were sold.
Eakins began to receive formal recognition only
toward the end of his life. In 1903, he became an associate of the National Academy of Design, and an academician the same year. He received gold medals at the
Pan-American Exposition, in Buffalo (1901), and the
Louisiana Purchase Exposition, in Saint Louis (1904)
(2 ).
During his career, Eakins tried to combine the organizational association with the Academy with highly
controversial attitudes (at the time) in a society with
Clinical Chemistry 58:2 (2012) 481
Science in the Arts
puritanical conservative tastes—an almost impossible
task. Yet, with a remarkable stubbornness, Eakins held
his line. This eventually brought him the recognition
and status of an Old Master in American art.
Author Contributions: All authors confirmed they have contributed to
the intellectual content of this paper and have met the following 3 requirements: (a) significant contributions to the conception and design,
acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; (b) drafting
or revising the article for intellectual content; and (c) final approval of
the published article.
Authors’ Disclosures or Potential Conflicts of Interest: No authors
declared any potential conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgments: The author thanks Jacky Gardiner for excellent
secretarial assistance.
References
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DOI: 10.1373/clinchem.2011.179028