Editing Thomas Eakins (section)

==Early life and education==
{{See also|List of works by Thomas Eakins}}
[[File:Thomas Eakins as a young boy (cropped).jpg|thumb|A young Thomas Eakins at age six]]

Eakins was born and lived most of his life in [[Philadelphia]]. He was the first child of Caroline Cowperthwait Eakins, a woman of English and Dutch descent, and Benjamin Eakins, a writing master and calligraphy teacher of Scottish and Irish ancestry.<ref>Goodrich, Vol. I, pp. 1–4.</ref> His father grew up on a farm in [[Valley Forge, Pennsylvania]], the son of a weaver. He was successful in his chosen profession, and moved to [[Philadelphia]] in the early 1840s, to raise his family. Thomas Eakins observed his father at work and by twelve demonstrated skill in precise line drawing, perspective, and the use of a grid to lay out a careful design, all skills he later applied to his art.<ref>Amy B. Werbel, ''Thomas Eakins'', Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001, {{ISBN|0-87633-142-8}}, p. 5</ref>

Eakins was an athletic child who enjoyed rowing, ice skating, swimming, wrestling, sailing, and gymnastics; he later used these as subjects in his painting and encouraged them in his students. Eakins attended [[Central High School (Philadelphia)|Central High School]] in Philadelphia, the premier public school for applied science and arts in the city, where he excelled in mechanical drawing. Thomas met fellow artist and lifelong friend [[Charles Lewis Fussell]] in high school, and they reunited at the [[Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts]] in Philadelphia, where Thomas enrolled in 1861.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.schwarzgallery.com/catalog/misc/pdf/schwarz_79cat.pdf|title=Charles Lewis Fussell (1840–1909)|year=2007|website=schwarzgallery.com|access-date=January 16, 2018|archive-date=April 12, 2019|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190412104312/http://www.schwarzgallery.com/catalog/misc/pdf/schwarz_79cat.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> At Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Eakins enrolled in courses in anatomy and dissection at [[Jefferson Medical College]] from 1864 to 1865. For a while, he followed his father's profession and was listed in city directories as a writing teacher.<ref>Amy B. Werbel, p. 10</ref> His scientific interest in the human body led him to consider becoming a surgeon.<ref>Canaday, John: "Thomas Eakins; Familiar truths in clear and beautiful language", ''Horizon'', p. 96. Vol. VI, no. 4, Autumn, 1964.</ref>

Eakins then studied art in Europe from 1866 to 1870, including with [[Jean-Léon Gérôme]] in [[Paris]]; he was only the second American pupil of the French realist painter, who was known as a master of [[Orientalism]].<ref>H. Barbara Weinberg, ''Thomas Eakins'', Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001, {{ISBN|0-87633-142-8}}, p. 15</ref> Eakins also attended the atelier of [[Léon Bonnat]], a realist painter who emphasized anatomical preciseness, a method adapted by Eakins. While studying at the {{Lang|fr|[[École des Beaux-Arts]]|italic=no}}, he seems to have taken scant interest in the new [[Impressionist]] movement, nor was he impressed by what he perceived as the classical pretensions of the [[French Academy]]. A letter home to his father in 1868 made his aesthetic clear:

<blockquote>She [the female nude] is the most beautiful thing there is in the world except a naked man, but I never yet saw a study of one exhibited... It would be a godsend to see a fine man model painted in the studio with the bare walls, alongside of the smiling smirking goddesses of waxy complexion amidst the delicious arsenic green trees and gentle wax flowers & purling streams running melodious up & down the hills especially up. I hate affectation.<ref>Homer, William Innes, ''Thomas Eakins: His Life and Art'', p. 36. Abbeville Press, 1992.</ref></blockquote>

Already at age 24, "nudity and verity were linked with an unusual closeness in his mind."<ref>Updike, John: "The Ache in Eakins", ''Still Looking'', p. 80. Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.</ref> Yet his desire for truthfulness was more expansive, and the letters home to Philadelphia reveal a passion for realism that included, but was not limited to, the study of the figure.<ref>''In a big picture you can see what o'clock it is afternoon or morning if it's hot or cold winter or summer and what kind of people are there and what they are doing and why they are doing it.'' Homer, p. 36.</ref>

A trip to Spain for six months confirmed his admiration for the realism of artists such as [[Diego Velázquez]] and [[Jusepe de Ribera]].<ref>''Spanish work [is] so good so strong so reasonable so free from every affectation. It stands out like nature itself...'' Updike, p. 72.</ref> In [[Seville]] in 1869, he painted ''Carmelita Requeña'' ([[:File:Carmelita Requena by Thomas Eakins 1869.jpg|image link]]), a portrait of a seven-year-old [[Romani people|Romani]] dancer more freely and colorfully painted than his Paris studies. That same year he attempted his first large oil painting, ''A Street Scene in Seville'' ([[:File:A street scene in sevilla thomas eakins.jpeg|image link]]), wherein he first dealt with the complications of a scene observed outside the studio.<ref>Homer, p. 44.</ref> Although he failed to matriculate in a formal degree program and had shown no works in the European salons, Eakins succeeded in absorbing the techniques and methods of French and Spanish masters, and he began to formulate his artistic vision which he demonstrated in his first major painting upon his return to America. "I shall seek to achieve my broad effect from the very beginning",<ref>H. Barbara Weinberg, p. 23</ref> he declared.