Photograph 1910

Editor: Here we have a photograph by Thomas Eakins, dating back to 1910. It's a gelatin-silver print, and what strikes me most is the raw, almost unsettling simplicity of it. How do you interpret this work? Curator: Oh, unsettling, you say? That tickles something in me, because Eakins himself was a bit of a rebel rouser, wasn’t he? He delighted, I think, in stripping things bare – literally, as we see here with the nude figure – and forcing us to confront them head-on. What looks simple often has layers of intent behind it, you know. Notice the monochrome. It throws everything into sharp relief, amplifying textures – the skin, the bark, even the reedy foliage. It makes it all feel strangely immediate, like it’s happening right now, and yet ancient. Editor: That’s a great point! I didn’t think about the way monochrome flattens time. It makes the pastoral setting both contemporary and timeless, as if Pan himself has wandered onto a beach in 1910! Curator: Exactly! Or perhaps Pan has always been there, lurking just beyond the veil of our polite society. This feels almost like a stolen moment, a glimpse into something primal. Eakins invites us into this strangely vulnerable scene, daring us to look. I am wondering though, if by ‘unsettling’, were you perceiving something vulnerable too? Something fleeting that a posed picture could not afford to offer? Editor: Definitely something about vulnerability! Maybe also something slightly eerie in that isolation. Well, I know now to trust those first reactions more and consider Eakins’ artistic intention as an invitation. Thanks! Curator: Ah, my dear student, precisely! Trust the goosebumps; they often know before the brain does!