Photograph 1910

Thomas Eakins, the Philadelphia painter, created this unnamed photograph, sometime in the late nineteenth century. It depicts a woman in a white dress, standing in a garden. Eakins used photography as a tool for his painting, and also as an art form in itself. He was interested in representing the human body in a realistic way. But the relaxed pose of the model, and the soft focus suggest that Eakins was also interested in creating a mood, perhaps to convey a sense of dreamy melancholy. It is important to consider the social context in which Eakins was working. In the late nineteenth century, photography was still a relatively new medium, and it was not always accepted as a legitimate art form. Eakins was an advocate for photography as art, and he used his work to challenge the traditional art establishment. To fully understand the world in which Eakins was working, we might consult exhibition records, reviews in art journals, and publications by the artist and his circle.