Editing Thomas Eakins (section)

===Photography===
[[File:Standing Male Nude with Pipes - Thomas Eakins.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|''Standing Male Nude with Pipes'' by Eakins (1880s), now housed at the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]]]]
[[File:Eakins, Thomas (1844-1916) - Study in the human motion.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|''[[Study in Human Motion]]'' an Eakins photograph]]

Eakins has been credited with having "introduced the camera to the American art studio".<ref>Rosenheim, Jeff L., "Thomas Eakins, Artist-Photographer, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art", ''Thomas Eakins and the Metropolitan Museum'', p. 45. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994.</ref> During his study abroad, he was exposed to the use of photography by the French realists, though the use of photography was still frowned upon as a shortcut by traditionalists.<ref>Sewell et al. 2001, pp. 225–26</ref>

In the late 1870s, Eakins was introduced to the photographic motion studies of [[Eadweard Muybridge]], particularly the [[Sallie Gardner at a Gallop|equine studies]], and became interested in using the camera to study sequential movement.<ref>"By 1879 Eakins was in direct communication with Muybridge." Goodrich, Vol. I, p. 263.</ref> In 1883, Muybridge gave a lecture at the academy, arranged by Eakins and [[University of Pennsylvania]] (Penn) trustee [[Fairman Rogers]].<ref name="Brockmeier">{{cite web|last=Brockmeier|first=Erica K.|title=A new way of thinking about motion, movement, and the concept of time|url=https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/new-way-thinking-about-motion-movement-eadweard-muybridge|website=Penn Today|access-date=March 14, 2022|date=February 17, 2020}}</ref> A group of Philadelphians, including Penn Provost [[William Pepper]] and the publisher [[J. B. Lippincott]] recruited Muybridge to work at Penn under their sponsorship.<ref name="Brockmeier"/> In 1884, Eakins worked briefly alongside Muybridge in the latter's photographic studio at the northeast corner of 36th and Pine streets in Philadelphia.<ref name="Brockmeier"/>{{sfn|Brookman|Braun|Keller|Solnit|2010|p={{page needed|date=May 2024}}}}

Eakins soon performed his own independent motion studies, also usually involving the nude figure, and even developed his own technique for capturing movement on film.<ref>"With their sequential but overlapping forms, Eakins's motion studies created a truer depiction of kinetics than the contemporaneous pictures made on separate plates in separate cameras by Eadweard Muybridge, his colleague at the University of Pennsylvania." Rosenheim, p. 50.</ref> Whereas Muybridge's system relied on a series of cameras triggered to produce a sequence of individual photographs, Eakins preferred to use a single camera to produce a series of exposures superimposed on one negative.<ref>Sewell, p. 82.</ref> Eakins was more interested in precision measurements on a single image to aid in translating a motion into a painting, while Muybridge preferred separate images that could also be displayed by his primitive movie projector.{{sfn|Brookman|Braun|Keller|Solnit|2010|p={{page needed|date=May 2024}}}}

After Eakins obtained a camera in 1880, several paintings, such as ''Mending the Net'' (1881; [[:file:Thomas Eakins - Mending the Net G158.jpg|image link]]) and ''Arcadia'' (1883; [[:File:Eakins, Thomas (1844 - 1916) - Arcadia - ca. 1883.jpg|image link]]), are known to have been derived at least in part from his photographs. Some figures appear to be detailed transcriptions and tracings from the photographs by some device like a [[magic lantern]], which Eakins then took pains to cover up with oil paint. Eakins' methods appear to be meticulously applied, and rather than shortcuts, were likely used in a quest for accuracy and realism.<ref>Tucker and Gutman, ''Thomas Eakins'', Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001, {{ISBN|0-87633-142-8}}, pp. 229, 238</ref>

An excellent example of Eakins' use of this new technology is his painting ''[[The Fairman Rogers Four-in-Hand|A May Morning in the Park]]'', which relied heavily on photographic motion studies to depict the true gait of the four horses pulling the coach of patron Rogers. But in typical fashion, Eakins also employed wax figures and oil sketches to get the final effect he desired.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Fairman Rogers Four-In-Hand (A May Morning in the Park) |url=https://www.slam.org/collection/objects/1086/ |access-date=2023-12-11 |website=Saint Louis Art Museum |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Model of a Right Wheeler Horse for 'A May Morning in the Park (The Fairman Rogers Four-in-Hand)' |url=https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/52090 |access-date=2023-12-11 |website=philamuseum.org |language=en}}</ref>

The so-called "Naked Series", which began in 1883, were nude photos of students and professional models which were taken to show real human anatomy from several specific angles, and were often hung and displayed for study at the school. Later, less regimented poses were taken indoors and out, of men, women, and children, including his wife. The most provocative, and the only ones combining males and females, were nude photos of Eakins and a female model (see below). Although witnesses and [[Chaperone (social)|chaperones]] were usually on site, and the poses were mostly traditional in nature, the sheer quantity of the photos and Eakins' overt display of them may have undermined his standing at the academy.<ref>W. Douglass Paschall, ''Thomas Eakins'', Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001, {{ISBN|0-87633-142-8}}, pp. 251, 238</ref> In all, about eight hundred photographs are now attributed to Eakins and his circle, most of which are figure studies, both clothed and nude, and portraits.<ref>Rosenheim, p. 45.</ref> No other American artist of his time matched Eakins' interest in photography, nor produced a comparable body of photographic works.<ref>Goodrich, Vol. I, p. 260.</ref>

Eakins used photography for his own private ends as well. Aside from nude men, and women, he also photographed nude children. While the photographs of the nude adults are more artistically composed, the younger children and infants are posed less formally. These photographs, that are "charged with sexual overtones", as Susan Danly and Cheryl Leibold write, are of unidentified children.<ref>Danly, Susan., and Cheryl. Leibold. Eakins and the Photograph: Works by Thomas Eakins and His Circle in the Collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Washington: Published for the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts by the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994. p. 184</ref> In the catalog of Eakins' collection at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, photograph number 308 is of an African American child reclining on a couch and posed as Venus. Both [[Saidiya Hartman]] and [[Fred Moten]] write, respectively, about the photograph, and the child that it arrests.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hartman |first=Saidiya |author-link= |date=2019 |title=Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments |url= |location= |publisher=W.W. Norton & Company |page= |isbn=978-0-393-28567-3}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Moten |first=Fred |author-link= |date=2017 |title=Black and Blur |url= |location= |publisher=Duke University Press |page= |isbn=978-0-822-37016-1}}</ref>