Thomas Eakins
Last time, we saw the work of French photographer Albert Londe, who developed a device with 12 cameras with shutters that were released in quick succession in order to do stop-motion photography before the movie camera was invented.
Today we look at American artist Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) who is famous as a painter. His best-known work is The Swimming Hole (above). But he was also an avid photographer, and he also did stop-motion photography.
%20Thomas%20Eakins%20in%20front%20of%20cloth%20backdrop,%20pose%204%20(Thomas%20Eakins).jpg)
Eakins worked at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He is credited with introducing the camera as a tool to American artists. He was fascinated by the work of Eadweard Muybridge. When Muybridge came to the University of Pennsylvania to work, Eakins briefly worked alongside him in Muybridge's studio in 1884. Above is Eakins posing nude for part of a series of his own (not Muybridge's) nude photographs.
For his stop-motion photography, Eakins adapted the camera of French photographer Etienne-Jules Marey, which made multiple images on a single piece of photographic film, rather than using multiple cameras like Muybridge. However, unlike Marey, who mostly used his camera to take nature photos of birds and animals, Eakins was intensely interested in the nude human body. He had already taken many nude photographs of his art students. Now he started doing nude stop-motion photography as well.
The photo above is called The History of a Jump. In addition to the multiple images, it contains Eakins' technical notes on the timing of the photographic exposures.
%20nude%20standing%20jump%20to%20right%201885.jpg)
Here's the same image without the notes. It's described as "motion study – nude standing jump to right." The subject is said to be George Reynolds, a student of Eakins. Reynolds is the guy jumping into the water in The Swimming Hole.
.jpg)
Here's a photo of George Reynolds jumping to the left, 1884.
%202.jpg)
And here's George Reynolds pole vaulting, 1885.
This is Jesse Godley walking, 1884. Jesse was also a student of Eakins. He is the standing figure in The Swimming Hole.
.jpg)
Jesse Godley running, 1884, with metallic markers attached to his body. The purpose of the markers was presumably to be able to do a scientific analysis of the motion of the runner's body.
.jpg)
Eakins was not afraid to appear nude himself. We end with this motion study photo of Eakins running.
10 comments:
I can't imagine college men today posing like this.
Students, especially those who were athletes, obviously agreed to be completely naked for these photos. I wonder how they felt being asked to do this. I think of the 19th century as a time of Victorian sensibility: men wore stiff collars and top hats, women were covered from head to toe in voluminous dresses, etc. Asking persons from this era to remove all their clothes and pose nude just seems quite extraordinary.
Fascinating.
There were also a lot of double standards. Men were .ore likely to do such things if a woman would never see them, for instance. Also why bathhouses were even possible. And of course nude swimming at the YMCA.
Any idea on his sexuality? I think Muybridge was straight The nude studies may just be about photography and the human body, but “The Swimming Hole” looks like the work of a man who would be eagerly reading your blog if he were alive today.
@Anon- In the Victorian era, males routinely swam together naked, as long as no females were present. These students were all students of Eakins’ art classes, and they also posed nude in the art classes. So they would have been comfortable being naked around Eakins and the other male students. We think of the Victorians as being prudish, but in situations of male-only groups, they were actually less prudish than we are today.
@wanderlust
The local museum to me had an exhibit of Eakins and my strong impression from looking at his works live is that "wow a *very* gay man painted and photographed these".
Wikipedia is more modest and dry about the implication. There's a dude named Samuel Murray (we know what he looked like naked) hint hint.
I think he was homosexual. What a beautiful painting!
"The Swimming Hole" is probably off Peter's Island in the Schuylkill River in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. You can see that stonework today.
George Reynolds was a student of Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Art Students' League of Philadelphia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Students%27_League_of_Philadelphia
Post a Comment