It's been over six months since I featured the work of Thomas Eakins, the pioneering
(and scandalous by the standards of his time) Philadelphia artist and instructor. We'll start
with one of the many photo studies he did for his painting "The Swimming Hole." This one
bears the least resemblance to the final work of those in my collection.
It does get close to the painting. Was Eakins' homosexuality the basis of the scandal? Surely men swimming naked was widely practiced and accepted back then.
ReplyDeleteHis homosexuality wasn't openly an issue during his lifetime. It was his use of students as nude models and his letting his female students view them that caused the scandal, something we wouldn't bat an eye at today.
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