Thomas Eakins 1964

Here’s a portrait of Thomas Eakins made by Leonard Baskin. The image is built from a nervous accumulation of tiny, flickering lines, like the hesitant marks of an uncertain hand. You can imagine Baskin hunched over a copper plate, his breath held tight as he coaxes the image into being, slowly, one line at a time. I feel a sense of kinship with Baskin, another artist trying to see another artist. Was he trying to capture Eakins' spirit, his intensity, or was he just trying to see him as a fellow traveler, a comrade in the trenches of image-making? Look at the area around the hair – notice how the lines become more frenetic, almost chaotic? It gives the impression of a mind teeming with thoughts, a restless energy contained within the boundaries of the head. In a way, this echoes Eakins' own approach to painting – that intense observation, that relentless pursuit of truth. It’s like they're in conversation across time, two artists grappling with the same fundamental questions of representation.