William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River 1908

Thomas Eakins made this painting of William Rush in his studio at some point during his career, and he used oil paint on canvas to do it. Just look at how Rush, with hammer and chisel in hand, is captured mid-action, while the model stands serenely, her back turned to us! I bet Eakins was trying to figure out how to depict labor and creativity all at once. It's such a warm, brown scene, like the whole studio is dipped in coffee. I can almost smell the wood shavings and linseed oil! And there's this wonderful dance between realism and something else... a kind of staged tableau where everyone is playing their role. And the gaze is so interesting, it is as if Rush and the model are in deep conversation and we are witnessing that. I mean, who gets to look? Eakins, like other painters, was totally obsessed with how to make a world on a flat surface, and how to include narrative into a painting. It’s as if he's asking us, "How do we turn life into art, and art back into life?"