The Swimming Hole
Encyclopedia
The Swimming Hole is an 1884–85 painting by the American artist Thomas Eakins
(1844–1916), Goodrich catalog #190, in the collection of the Amon Carter Museum
in Fort Worth, Texas
. Executed in oil on canvas
, it depicts six men swimming naked
in a lake, and is considered a masterpiece of American painting. According to art historian Doreen Bolger it is "perhaps Eakins' most accomplished rendition of the nude figure", and has been called "the most finely designed of all his outdoor pictures". Since the Renaissance
, the human body has been considered both the basis of artists' training
and the most challenging subject to depict in art, and the nude was the centerpiece of Eakins' teaching program at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
. For Eakins, this picture was an opportunity to display his mastery of the human form.
In this work, Eakins took advantage of an exception to the generally prudish Victorian
attitude to nudity
: swimming naked was widely accepted, and for males was seen as normal, even in public spaces. Eakins was the first American artist to portray one of the few occasions in 19th century life when nudity was on display. The Swimming Hole develops themes raised in his earlier work, in particular his treatment of buttocks
and his ambiguous treatment of the human form; in some cases it is uncertain as to whether the forms portrayed are male or female. Such themes had earlier been examined in his The Gross Clinic
(1875) and William Rush
(1877), and would continue to be explored in his paintings of boxers (Taking the Count, Salutat
, and Between Rounds) and wrestlers (Wrestlers
).
Although the theme of male bathers was familiar in Western art
, having been explored by artists from Michelangelo
to Daumier, Eakins' treatment was novel in American art
at the time. The Swimming Hole has been "widely cited as a prime example of homoeroticism in American art". In 2008, the art critic Tom Lubbock described Eakins' work as:
Eakins referred to the painting as Swimming in 1885, and as The Swimmers in 1886. The title The Swimming Hole dates from 1917 (the year after Eakins died), when the work was so described by the artist's widow, Susan Macdowell Eakins
. Four years later, she titled the work The Old Swimming Hole, in reference to the 1882 poem The Old Swimmin'-Hole; by James Whitcomb Riley
. The Amon Carter Museum
has since returned to Eakins' original title, Swimming.
The painting shows Eakins and five friends or students bathing at Dove Lake
, an artificial lake in Mill Creek outside Philadelphia. Each of the men is looking at the water, in the words of Martin A. Berger, "apparently lost in a contemplative moment". Eakins' precise rendering of the figures has enabled scholars to identify all those depicted in the work. They are (from left to right): Talcott Williams
(1849–1928), Benjamin Fox (c. 1865 – c. 1900), John Laurie Wallace (1864–1953), Jesse Godley (1862–1889), Harry the dog (Eakins' Irish Setter
, c. 1880–90), George Reynolds (c. 1839–89), and Eakins himself. The rocky promontory on which several of the men rest is the foundation of the Mill Creek mill, which was razed in 1873. It is the only sign of civilization in the work—no shoes, clothes, or bath houses are visible. The foliage in the background provides a dark background against which the swimmers' skin tones contrast.
The composition is pyramidal. The figure reclining at left leads the viewer's eye to the seated figure, whose gesture in turn points to Godley at the apex of the compositional pyramid. The diving figure at right leads to the swimming form of Eakins, who painted himself into the scene and whose leftward movement directs attention back into the painting. Eakins enforces this pyramidal structure by manipulating the focus
of the painting: the center area containing the swimmers is extremely precise, while the outer areas are diffuse, with "virtually no moderating zones in between". The lighting within the picture is unnatural—too bright in some places, and too dark in others—although the effect, which tends to accentuate the body lines of the swimmers, is generally subtle.
The composition is notable for both its adherence to academic tradition (the mastery of the figure as an end in itself), and its uniqueness in transposing the male nude to an outdoor setting. The depiction of someone diving into water was very rare in the history of Western art. The other figures are artfully arranged to imply a continuous narrative of movement, the poses progressing "from reclining to sitting to standing to diving"; at the same time, each figure is carefully positioned so that no genitalia are visible. As in his previous works, Eakins chose to include a self-portrait
, here as the swimmer at bottom-right. Unlike his appearances in The Gross Clinic or Max Schmitt in a Single Scull
, here the artist's presence is more ambiguous—he may be seen as companion, teacher, or voyeur. The ripple in the water next to Eakins, and the bubbles around the diver, are the only indications of movement in a painting where motion is otherwise arrested; the water next to the red-headed figure in the lake is still enough to offer a clear reflection. This contrast underscores the tension in the picture between classical prototypes and scientific naturalism.
_-_arcadia_-_ca._1883.jpg)
The positioning of the bodies and their musculature refers to classical ideals of physical beauty and masculine camaraderie evocative of Greek art
. The reclining figure is a paraphrase of the Dying Gaul
, and is juxtaposed with the far less formal self-depiction by the artist. It is possible that Eakins was seeking to reconcile an ancient theme with a modern interpretation; the subject was contemporary, but the poses of some of the figures recall those of classical sculpture. One possible influence by a contemporary source was Scène d'été
, painted in 1869 by Frédéric Bazille
(1841–70). It is not unlikely that Eakins saw the painting at the Salon while studying in Paris, and would have been sympathetic to its depiction of male bathers in a modern setting.
In Eakins' oeuvre, The Swimming Hole was immediately preceded by a number of similar works on the Arcadian
theme. These correspond to lectures he gave on Ancient Greek sculpture
and were inspired by the Pennsylvania Academy's casts of Phidias
' Pan-Athenaic procession from the Parthenon marbles
. A series of photographs, relief sculptures, and oil sketches culminated in the 1883 Arcadia, a painting that also featured nude figures—posed for by a student, a nephew, and the artist's fiancée—in a pastoral landscape.
es and photographic studies before painting The Swimming Hole. It is unknown whether the photographs were taken before the oil sketches were produced or vice versa (or, indeed, whether they were created on the same day).
By the early 1880s, Eakins was using photography to explore sequential movement and as a reference for painting. Some time in 1883 or 1884, he photographed his students engaged in outdoor activities. Four photographs of his students swimming naked in Dove Lake have survived, and bear a clear relationship to The Swimming Hole. The swimmers are seen in the same spot and from the same vantage point, although their positions are entirely different from those in the painting. None of the photographs closely matches the poses depicted in the painting; this was unusual for Eakins, who typically adhered closely to his photographic studies. "The divergence between these sets of images may hint at lost or destroyed pictures, or it may tell us that the photographs came first, before Eakins' mental image had crystallized, and before the execution of his first oil sketch." The poses in the photographs are more spontaneous, while those of the painting are deliberately composed with a classical "severity". Although no photographic studies have survived that would suggest a more direct connection between the photographs and the painting, recent scholarship has proposed that marks incised onto the canvas and later covered by paint indicate that Eakins made use of light-projected photographs.
Eakins combined his studies into a final oil sketch in 1884, which became the basis for the finished painting. The basic composition remained unchanged, as all six men and the dog appeared in the sketch; however, Eakins, who usually adhered closely to his sketches when developing a final work, made several uncharacteristic alterations to the specific movements and positions of the figures. A friend and student, Charles Bregler, described the process:
, a Philadelphia businessman who chaired the Committee on Instruction at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where Eakins taught. Coates intended to pay Eakins $800 ($ in dollars), which at the time was the largest commission Eakins had been offered.
Coates intended the painting for an exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and it was shown at the Academy's exhibition in the fall of 1885. However, Coates rejected it as unrepresentative of Eakins' oeuvre. In a November 27, 1885 letter to Eakins, Coates reasoned:
It is not known precisely why Coates failed to purchase the painting; however, it seems likely that Coates felt the work was too controversial to acquire. Coates, as Head of Instruction at Eakins' academy, would have been familiar with the subject matter of Eakins' works, and thus it seems unlikely that the nudity in the painting would have surprised or shocked him. Rather, it seems certain that Coates would have recognized the majority of men in the painting, as all but one were students of Eakins at the academy. He was undoubtedly familiar with the site depicted in the painting too, as it was only a half a mile (800 m) from Haverford College
, where Coates studied as an undergraduate. The depiction of a professor and his students together in the nude would have been a sensitive subject for the academy's directors, who had forbidden Eakins from using Academy students as models, as modeling was considered indecent. Coates chose to exchange The Swimming Hole for the "less controversial genre scene" of Eakins' The Pathetic Song—today housed in the Corcoran Gallery of Art
— and paid Eakins the $800 he had offered for the original commission.
On February 9, 1886, Eakins was forced to resign from the Academy because of his removal of a loincloth from a male model in a class where female students were present. In a letter to Coates on February 15 in which Eakins explained his reasons for resigning, he addressed the issue of nudity in his artwork:
Following its rejection by Coates, the painting remained in Eakins' possession until his death. It was exhibited just twice more during Eakins' lifetime: at the 1886 Southern Exposition in Louisville, Kentucky
, and in 1887 at Chicago's Inter-State Industrial Exposition, and ignored by critics on both occasions. The painting then disappears from the historical record—there is no further reference to the painting in any records from Eakins or his circle of friends during Eakins' lifetime. Following Eakins' death, the painting was exhibited in Philadelphia and New York at memorial exhibitions in 1917.
In 1925, The Swimming Hole was purchased from the artist's widow by the community of Fort Worth, Texas
for $750 ($ in dollars). Thereafter it was in the collection of the Fort Worth Art Association, the institutional predecessor of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
, and was displayed in the city's public library. In 1990, the museum announced it intended to sell the painting to build an endowment for the purchase of contemporary art. A public outcry ensued, prompting the museum to search for a local buyer. Eventually, after tumultuous negotiations, the Amon Carter Museum
agreed to purchase The Swimming Hole for $10 million ($ in dollars).
. It may have been restored prior to its inclusion in Eakins' memorial exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
in 1917. A photograph from that time reveals cracks in the glazes
and a drip mark, possibly caused by the splash of a caustic liquid. After the painting was acquired by the Fort Worth Art Association, it was often lent out for exhibitions and was damaged as a result. In 1937 it was relined by a private gallery in New York City and the drip was painted out. In 1944 it was relined and restored and in 1947 it was restored again, both times by a private New York dealer. The Brooklyn Museum
performed two minor restorations in 1954 and 1957. Although it continued to travel frequently, The Swimming Hole received no comprehensive treatment until 1993.
Following its purchase by the Amon Carter Museum, in June 1993, Claire M. Barry and staff from the Amon Carter and the Kimbell Art Museum
s began a major restoration of the painting. According to Barry, "The restoration revealed relatively little significant damage or deterioration not previously visible. Several layers of discolored varnish and overpaint were removed, exposing a rich and varied surface with brushwork ranging from the controlled, almost miniaturistic strokes forming the figures to the freer treatment of the landscape elements."
Much effort went into distinguishing the original glazes from those added during subsequent restorations. Previous retouches were removed and a natural resin varnish was applied. The painting's original frame, long missing, was located in 1992. It too was cleaned, restored, and reinstalled to the painting.
During the restoration, it was discovered that a long-standing ascription of the painting's date to 1883 was the result of a misinterpretation: the artist's original inscription of 1885 was painted in a fugitive
red-lake pigment that had faded, and was mistakenly repainted by a conservator to the earlier date.
(1897–1987) believed the work was "Eakins' most masterful use of the nude", with the solidly conceived figures perfectly integrated into the landscape, an image of subtle tonal construction and one of the artist's "richest pieces of painting". Another biographer, William Innes Homer
(b. 1929), was more reserved and described the poses of the figures as rigidly academic. Homer found inconsistencies in paint quality and atmospheric effect, and wrote that the painting was unsuccessful in reconciling antique and naturalistic ideals. For him, "it is as though these nudes had been abruptly transplanted from the studio into nature".
Before the mid-19th century, the subject of the nude male figure in Western art had long been reserved for classical subject matter. In the 19th century, it was not unusual for boys and men to swim without clothing in public, but there was no precedent for this subject in American painting. Although there was an informal convention for multiple-figure compositions featuring female nudes, in America such paintings were exhibited in saloons rather than galleries; Eakins altered the gender and presented the subject as fine art. Viewed in a broader context, The Swimming Hole has been cited as one of the few 19th-century American paintings that "engages directly with a newly emerging European tradition"—that of the male bather. Eakins' picture, although not as stylistically progressive as the works of his French contemporaries, parallels the novel thematic direction taken by Bazille in Summer Scene, Georges Seurat
(1859–91) (Bathers at Asnières, 1884) and Paul Cézanne
(1839–1906) in his numerous explorations of the subject. In 1906 Paul Sérusier
one of the founders of the Nabi movement
painted Boys on a Riverbank, a painting of three boys swimming nude.
Eakins' work influenced the subsequent generation of American realists
, particularly the artists of the Ashcan School
. George Bellows
' (1882–1925) Forty-two Kids, painted in 1907, bears obvious similarity to The Swimming Hole, although Bellows' painting has been interpreted as a parody of the Eakins, and the many naked children of the title are playing in the urban Hudson River
of New York City
rather than in a rural setting. In a sentiment that reflected Eakins' philosophy, Bellows later explained his motivation for painting Forty-two Kids: "Prizefighters and swimmers are the only types whose muscular action can be painted in the nude legitimately."
Eakins' widow's retitling of the picture after his death reinforced the popular association with the nostalgic sentiment of Riley's poem. More recently, the painting's subject has been compared to the poem "Song of Myself
" by Walt Whitman
(1819–92), particularly the section "Twenty-Eight Young Men Bathe by the Shore", given the shared interest in the imagery of men bathing in the nude. Whitman may have provided inspiration: the celebration of nudity, which in Whitman's case was an open expression of his homosexuality, informs the art of both men. In 1895, one of Eakins' male students reminisced about "us Whitman fellows", which has been interpreted as a reference to homosexuality. "But for their marital status, however, virtually nothing concrete is known of the private realms or sexual propensities of any of the men depicted (in The Swimming Hole), with the exception of Eakins."
Although the painting has been viewed as a platonic
vision of the male nude seen unselfconsciously in a natural setting, by the 1970s some American writers were beginning to see Eakins' work, and specifically The Swimming Hole, as having homoerotic implications. Critics have paid particular attention to the compositional prominence of the standing figure's buttocks, which has been interpreted as suggestive of "homoerotic interests". According to Jonathan Weinberg, The Swimming Hole marked the beginning of homoerotic imagery in American art. Eakins left a record simultaneously provocative and ambiguous on matters of sex. On the basis of the same visual evidence, that of the photographs, oil sketches, and the finished painting of swimmers, art historians have drawn markedly varying conclusions as to the artist's intent.
Thomas Eakins
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator...
(1844–1916), Goodrich catalog #190, in the collection of the Amon Carter Museum
Amon Carter Museum
The Amon Carter Museum of American Art is located in Fort Worth, Texas. It was established by Amon G. Carter to house his collection of paintings and sculpture by Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell. Carter’s will provided a museum in Fort Worth devoted to American art.When the museum opened...
in Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...
. Executed in oil on canvas
Oil on Canvas
Oil on Canvas is a live album by the British band Japan, released in 1983 by Virgin Records. Although it is a live recording of their established material, the album also contains three new studio tracks , recorded separately by Sylvian, Sylvian/Jansen and Barbieri respectively...
, it depicts six men swimming naked
Skinny dipping
Nude swimming, colloquially called skinny dipping, is a term used to describe swimming naked.-Etymology:The term skinny dip, first recorded in English in the 1950s, includes the somewhat archaic word skinny, known since 1573, meaning "having to do with skin", as it exposed the naked...
in a lake, and is considered a masterpiece of American painting. According to art historian Doreen Bolger it is "perhaps Eakins' most accomplished rendition of the nude figure", and has been called "the most finely designed of all his outdoor pictures". Since the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
, the human body has been considered both the basis of artists' training
Figure drawing
In art, a figure drawing is a study of the human form in its various shapes and body postures - sitting, standing or even sleeping. It is a study or stylized depiction of the human form, with the line and form of the human figure as the primary objective, rather than the subject person. It is a...
and the most challenging subject to depict in art, and the nude was the centerpiece of Eakins' teaching program at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is a museum and art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1805 and is the oldest art museum and school in the United States. The academy's museum is internationally known for its collections of 19th and 20th century American paintings,...
. For Eakins, this picture was an opportunity to display his mastery of the human form.
In this work, Eakins took advantage of an exception to the generally prudish Victorian
Victorian morality
Victorian morality is a distillation of the moral views of people living at the time of Queen Victoria's reign and of the moral climate of the United Kingdom throughout the 19th century in general, which contrasted greatly with the morality of the previous Georgian period...
attitude to nudity
Nudity
Nudity is the state of wearing no clothing. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic. The amount of clothing worn depends on functional considerations and social considerations...
: swimming naked was widely accepted, and for males was seen as normal, even in public spaces. Eakins was the first American artist to portray one of the few occasions in 19th century life when nudity was on display. The Swimming Hole develops themes raised in his earlier work, in particular his treatment of buttocks
Buttocks
The buttocks are two rounded portions of the anatomy, located on the posterior of the pelvic region of apes and humans, and many other bipeds or quadrupeds, and comprise a layer of fat superimposed on the gluteus maximus and gluteus medius muscles. Physiologically, the buttocks enable weight to...
and his ambiguous treatment of the human form; in some cases it is uncertain as to whether the forms portrayed are male or female. Such themes had earlier been examined in his The Gross Clinic
The Gross Clinic
The Gross Clinic, or, The Clinic of Dr. Gross, is an 1875 painting by American artist Thomas Eakins. It is oil on canvas and measures by . Dr. Samuel D. Gross, a seventy-year-old professor dressed in a black frock coat, lectures a group of Jefferson Medical College students...
(1875) and William Rush
William Rush and His Model
William Rush and His Model is the name given to several paintings by Thomas Eakins, one set from 1876-77 and the other from 1908. These works depict the American wood sculptor William Rush in 1808, carving his statue Water Nymph and Bittern for a fountain at Philadelphia's first waterworks...
(1877), and would continue to be explored in his paintings of boxers (Taking the Count, Salutat
Salutat
Salutat is an 1898 painting by Thomas Eakins . Based on a real-life boxing match that occurred in 1898, the work depicts a boxer waving to the crowd after the match...
, and Between Rounds) and wrestlers (Wrestlers
Wrestlers (painting)
Wrestlers is an 1899 painting by Thomas Eakins, Goodrich catalog #317. Executed in oil on canvas, it depicts two nearly naked men engaged in a wrestling match. One figure has the other in a half nelson and crotch hold. Eakins painted the work from a nearly identical photograph.The photograph was...
).
Although the theme of male bathers was familiar in Western art
Western art history
Western art is the art of the North American and European countries, and art created in the forms accepted by those countries.Written histories of Western art often begin with the art of the Ancient Middle East, Ancient Egypt and the Ancient Aegean civilisations, dating from the 3rd millennium BC...
, having been explored by artists from Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
to Daumier, Eakins' treatment was novel in American art
Visual arts of the United States
American art encompasses the history of painting and visual art in the United States. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, artists primarily painted landscapes and portraits in a realistic style. A parallel development taking shape in rural America was the American craft movement,...
at the time. The Swimming Hole has been "widely cited as a prime example of homoeroticism in American art". In 2008, the art critic Tom Lubbock described Eakins' work as:
Title and composition
Susan Macdowell Eakins
Susan Hannah Macdowell Eakins was an American artist and wife of Thomas Eakins. She was the fifth of eight children of a Philadelphia engraver, well known in the artistic community...
. Four years later, she titled the work The Old Swimming Hole, in reference to the 1882 poem The Old Swimmin'-Hole; by James Whitcomb Riley
James Whitcomb Riley
James Whitcomb Riley was an American writer, poet, and best selling author. During his lifetime he was known as the Hoosier Poet and Children's Poet for his dialect works and his children's poetry respectively...
. The Amon Carter Museum
Amon Carter Museum
The Amon Carter Museum of American Art is located in Fort Worth, Texas. It was established by Amon G. Carter to house his collection of paintings and sculpture by Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell. Carter’s will provided a museum in Fort Worth devoted to American art.When the museum opened...
has since returned to Eakins' original title, Swimming.
The painting shows Eakins and five friends or students bathing at Dove Lake
Dove Lake (Pennsylvania)
Dove Lake is a reservoir in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. It was created by damming Mill Creek.Dove Lake was the setting of Thomas Eakins' The Swimming Hole....
, an artificial lake in Mill Creek outside Philadelphia. Each of the men is looking at the water, in the words of Martin A. Berger, "apparently lost in a contemplative moment". Eakins' precise rendering of the figures has enabled scholars to identify all those depicted in the work. They are (from left to right): Talcott Williams
Talcott Williams
Talcott Williams, , was an American journalist and educator, born at Abeih, Turkey, the son of Congregational missionaries. He graduated from Amherst in 1873. Afterwards. he was employed at the New York World, and as a correspondent for the New York Sun and the San Francisco Chronicle...
(1849–1928), Benjamin Fox (c. 1865 – c. 1900), John Laurie Wallace (1864–1953), Jesse Godley (1862–1889), Harry the dog (Eakins' Irish Setter
Irish Setter
The Irish Setter , is a setter, a breed of gundog and family dog. The term Irish Setter is commonly used to encompass the show-bred dog recognized by the American Kennel Club as well as the field-bred Red Setter recognised by the Field Dog Stud Book....
, c. 1880–90), George Reynolds (c. 1839–89), and Eakins himself. The rocky promontory on which several of the men rest is the foundation of the Mill Creek mill, which was razed in 1873. It is the only sign of civilization in the work—no shoes, clothes, or bath houses are visible. The foliage in the background provides a dark background against which the swimmers' skin tones contrast.
Focus (optics)
In geometrical optics, a focus, also called an image point, is the point where light rays originating from a point on the object converge. Although the focus is conceptually a point, physically the focus has a spatial extent, called the blur circle. This non-ideal focusing may be caused by...
of the painting: the center area containing the swimmers is extremely precise, while the outer areas are diffuse, with "virtually no moderating zones in between". The lighting within the picture is unnatural—too bright in some places, and too dark in others—although the effect, which tends to accentuate the body lines of the swimmers, is generally subtle.
The composition is notable for both its adherence to academic tradition (the mastery of the figure as an end in itself), and its uniqueness in transposing the male nude to an outdoor setting. The depiction of someone diving into water was very rare in the history of Western art. The other figures are artfully arranged to imply a continuous narrative of movement, the poses progressing "from reclining to sitting to standing to diving"; at the same time, each figure is carefully positioned so that no genitalia are visible. As in his previous works, Eakins chose to include a self-portrait
Self-portrait
A self-portrait is a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist. Although self-portraits have been made by artists since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid 15th century that artists can be frequently identified depicting...
, here as the swimmer at bottom-right. Unlike his appearances in The Gross Clinic or Max Schmitt in a Single Scull
Max Schmitt in a Single Scull
Max Schmitt in a Single Scull is an 1871 painting by Thomas Eakins in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art...
, here the artist's presence is more ambiguous—he may be seen as companion, teacher, or voyeur. The ripple in the water next to Eakins, and the bubbles around the diver, are the only indications of movement in a painting where motion is otherwise arrested; the water next to the red-headed figure in the lake is still enough to offer a clear reflection. This contrast underscores the tension in the picture between classical prototypes and scientific naturalism.
Greek art
Greek art began in the Cycladic and Minoan prehistorical civilization, and gave birth to Western classical art in the ancient period...
. The reclining figure is a paraphrase of the Dying Gaul
Dying Gaul
The Dying Gaul , formerly known as the Dying Gladiator, is an ancient Roman marble copy of a lost Hellenistic sculpture that is thought to have been executed in bronze, which was commissioned some time between 230 BC and 220 BC by Attalus I of Pergamon to celebrate his victory over the Celtic...
, and is juxtaposed with the far less formal self-depiction by the artist. It is possible that Eakins was seeking to reconcile an ancient theme with a modern interpretation; the subject was contemporary, but the poses of some of the figures recall those of classical sculpture. One possible influence by a contemporary source was Scène d'été
Scène d'été
Scène d'été, or Summer Scene, is a famous oil painting by Frédéric Bazille, completed in 1869, a year before his death in 1870. The impressionist painting depicted young men dressed in swimsuits having a leisurely day along the banks of a river near Méric...
, painted in 1869 by Frédéric Bazille
Frédéric Bazille
Jean Frédéric Bazille was a French Impressionist painter. Many of Bazille's major works are examples of figure painting in which Bazille placed the subject figure within a landscape painted en plein air....
(1841–70). It is not unlikely that Eakins saw the painting at the Salon while studying in Paris, and would have been sympathetic to its depiction of male bathers in a modern setting.
In Eakins' oeuvre, The Swimming Hole was immediately preceded by a number of similar works on the Arcadian
Arcadia (utopia)
Arcadia refers to a vision of pastoralism and harmony with nature. The term is derived from the Greek province of the same name which dates to antiquity; the province's mountainous topography and sparse population of pastoralists later caused the word Arcadia to develop into a poetic byword for an...
theme. These correspond to lectures he gave on Ancient Greek sculpture
Ancient Greek sculpture
Ancient Greek sculpture is the sculpture of Ancient Greece. Modern scholarship identifies three major stages. They were used to depict the battles, mythology, and rulers of the land known as Ancient Greece.-Geometric:...
and were inspired by the Pennsylvania Academy's casts of Phidias
Phidias
Phidias or the great Pheidias , was a Greek sculptor, painter and architect, who lived in the 5th century BC, and is commonly regarded as one of the greatest of all sculptors of Classical Greece: Phidias' Statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World...
' Pan-Athenaic procession from the Parthenon marbles
Elgin Marbles
The Parthenon Marbles, forming a part of the collection known as the Elgin Marbles , are a collection of classical Greek marble sculptures , inscriptions and architectural members that originally were part of the Parthenon and other buildings on the Acropolis of Athens...
. A series of photographs, relief sculptures, and oil sketches culminated in the 1883 Arcadia, a painting that also featured nude figures—posed for by a student, a nephew, and the artist's fiancée—in a pastoral landscape.
Studies
Eakins made several on-site oil sketchOil sketch
An Oil sketch or oil study is an artwork made primarily in oil paints that is more abbreviated in handling than a fully finished painting. Originally these were created as preparatory studies or modelli, especially so as to gain approval for the design of a larger commissioned painting...
es and photographic studies before painting The Swimming Hole. It is unknown whether the photographs were taken before the oil sketches were produced or vice versa (or, indeed, whether they were created on the same day).
By the early 1880s, Eakins was using photography to explore sequential movement and as a reference for painting. Some time in 1883 or 1884, he photographed his students engaged in outdoor activities. Four photographs of his students swimming naked in Dove Lake have survived, and bear a clear relationship to The Swimming Hole. The swimmers are seen in the same spot and from the same vantage point, although their positions are entirely different from those in the painting. None of the photographs closely matches the poses depicted in the painting; this was unusual for Eakins, who typically adhered closely to his photographic studies. "The divergence between these sets of images may hint at lost or destroyed pictures, or it may tell us that the photographs came first, before Eakins' mental image had crystallized, and before the execution of his first oil sketch." The poses in the photographs are more spontaneous, while those of the painting are deliberately composed with a classical "severity". Although no photographic studies have survived that would suggest a more direct connection between the photographs and the painting, recent scholarship has proposed that marks incised onto the canvas and later covered by paint indicate that Eakins made use of light-projected photographs.
Eakins combined his studies into a final oil sketch in 1884, which became the basis for the finished painting. The basic composition remained unchanged, as all six men and the dog appeared in the sketch; however, Eakins, who usually adhered closely to his sketches when developing a final work, made several uncharacteristic alterations to the specific movements and positions of the figures. A friend and student, Charles Bregler, described the process:
Commission and reception
The painting was commissioned in 1884 by Edward Hornor CoatesEdward Hornor Coates
Edward Hornor Coates was a Philadelphia businessman, financier, and patron of the arts and sciences...
, a Philadelphia businessman who chaired the Committee on Instruction at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where Eakins taught. Coates intended to pay Eakins $800 ($ in dollars), which at the time was the largest commission Eakins had been offered.
Coates intended the painting for an exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and it was shown at the Academy's exhibition in the fall of 1885. However, Coates rejected it as unrepresentative of Eakins' oeuvre. In a November 27, 1885 letter to Eakins, Coates reasoned:
It is not known precisely why Coates failed to purchase the painting; however, it seems likely that Coates felt the work was too controversial to acquire. Coates, as Head of Instruction at Eakins' academy, would have been familiar with the subject matter of Eakins' works, and thus it seems unlikely that the nudity in the painting would have surprised or shocked him. Rather, it seems certain that Coates would have recognized the majority of men in the painting, as all but one were students of Eakins at the academy. He was undoubtedly familiar with the site depicted in the painting too, as it was only a half a mile (800 m) from Haverford College
Haverford College
Haverford College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States, a suburb of Philadelphia...
, where Coates studied as an undergraduate. The depiction of a professor and his students together in the nude would have been a sensitive subject for the academy's directors, who had forbidden Eakins from using Academy students as models, as modeling was considered indecent. Coates chose to exchange The Swimming Hole for the "less controversial genre scene" of Eakins' The Pathetic Song—today housed in the Corcoran Gallery of Art
Corcoran Gallery of Art
The Corcoran Gallery of Art is the largest privately supported cultural institution in Washington, DC. The museum's main focus is American art. The permanent collection includes works by Rembrandt, Eugène Delacroix, Edgar Degas, Thomas Gainsborough, John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet, Pablo...
— and paid Eakins the $800 he had offered for the original commission.
On February 9, 1886, Eakins was forced to resign from the Academy because of his removal of a loincloth from a male model in a class where female students were present. In a letter to Coates on February 15 in which Eakins explained his reasons for resigning, he addressed the issue of nudity in his artwork:
Provenance
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
, and in 1887 at Chicago's Inter-State Industrial Exposition, and ignored by critics on both occasions. The painting then disappears from the historical record—there is no further reference to the painting in any records from Eakins or his circle of friends during Eakins' lifetime. Following Eakins' death, the painting was exhibited in Philadelphia and New York at memorial exhibitions in 1917.
In 1925, The Swimming Hole was purchased from the artist's widow by the community of Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...
for $750 ($ in dollars). Thereafter it was in the collection of the Fort Worth Art Association, the institutional predecessor of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth was first granted a Charter from the State of Texas in 1892 as the "Fort Worth Public Library and Art Gallery", evolving through several name changes and different facilities in Fort Worth...
, and was displayed in the city's public library. In 1990, the museum announced it intended to sell the painting to build an endowment for the purchase of contemporary art. A public outcry ensued, prompting the museum to search for a local buyer. Eventually, after tumultuous negotiations, the Amon Carter Museum
Amon Carter Museum
The Amon Carter Museum of American Art is located in Fort Worth, Texas. It was established by Amon G. Carter to house his collection of paintings and sculpture by Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell. Carter’s will provided a museum in Fort Worth devoted to American art.When the museum opened...
agreed to purchase The Swimming Hole for $10 million ($ in dollars).
Restorations
Before its purchase by the Amon Carter Museum, The Swimming Hole appears to have undergone seven different conservatory treatmentsArt restoration
Art restoration is related to art conservation. Restoration is a process that attempts to return the work of art to some previous state that the restorer imagines was the "original". This was commonly done in the past...
. It may have been restored prior to its inclusion in Eakins' memorial exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
in 1917. A photograph from that time reveals cracks in the glazes
Glaze (painting technique)
Glazes can change the chroma, value, hue and texture of a surface. Drying time will depend on the amount and type of paint medium used in the glaze. The medium, base, or vehicle is the mixture to which the dry pigment is added...
and a drip mark, possibly caused by the splash of a caustic liquid. After the painting was acquired by the Fort Worth Art Association, it was often lent out for exhibitions and was damaged as a result. In 1937 it was relined by a private gallery in New York City and the drip was painted out. In 1944 it was relined and restored and in 1947 it was restored again, both times by a private New York dealer. The Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....
performed two minor restorations in 1954 and 1957. Although it continued to travel frequently, The Swimming Hole received no comprehensive treatment until 1993.
Following its purchase by the Amon Carter Museum, in June 1993, Claire M. Barry and staff from the Amon Carter and the Kimbell Art Museum
Kimbell Art Museum
The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, hosts a small but excellent art collection as well as traveling art exhibitions, educational programs and an extensive research library. Its initial artwork came from the private collection of Kay and Velma Kimbell, who also provided funds for a new...
s began a major restoration of the painting. According to Barry, "The restoration revealed relatively little significant damage or deterioration not previously visible. Several layers of discolored varnish and overpaint were removed, exposing a rich and varied surface with brushwork ranging from the controlled, almost miniaturistic strokes forming the figures to the freer treatment of the landscape elements."
Much effort went into distinguishing the original glazes from those added during subsequent restorations. Previous retouches were removed and a natural resin varnish was applied. The painting's original frame, long missing, was located in 1992. It too was cleaned, restored, and reinstalled to the painting.
During the restoration, it was discovered that a long-standing ascription of the painting's date to 1883 was the result of a misinterpretation: the artist's original inscription of 1885 was painted in a fugitive
Fugitive pigments
Fugitive pigments are non-permanent pigments that lighten in a relatively short time when exposed to light. Fugitive pigments are present in types of paint, markers, inks etc., which are used for temporary applications...
red-lake pigment that had faded, and was mistakenly repainted by a conservator to the earlier date.
Interpretation
The Swimming Hole represented the full range of Eakins' techniques and academic principles. He used life study, photography, wax studies, and landscape sketches to produce a work that manifested his interest in the human form. Lloyd GoodrichLloyd Goodrich
Lloyd Goodrich was an influential American art historian. He wrote extensively on American artists, including Edward Hopper, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Raphael Soyer and Reginald Marsh...
(1897–1987) believed the work was "Eakins' most masterful use of the nude", with the solidly conceived figures perfectly integrated into the landscape, an image of subtle tonal construction and one of the artist's "richest pieces of painting". Another biographer, William Innes Homer
William Innes Homer
William Innes Homer is an American academic, art historian, and author. Homer is an expert in the life and works of painter Thomas Eakins.-Academic career:...
(b. 1929), was more reserved and described the poses of the figures as rigidly academic. Homer found inconsistencies in paint quality and atmospheric effect, and wrote that the painting was unsuccessful in reconciling antique and naturalistic ideals. For him, "it is as though these nudes had been abruptly transplanted from the studio into nature".
Before the mid-19th century, the subject of the nude male figure in Western art had long been reserved for classical subject matter. In the 19th century, it was not unusual for boys and men to swim without clothing in public, but there was no precedent for this subject in American painting. Although there was an informal convention for multiple-figure compositions featuring female nudes, in America such paintings were exhibited in saloons rather than galleries; Eakins altered the gender and presented the subject as fine art. Viewed in a broader context, The Swimming Hole has been cited as one of the few 19th-century American paintings that "engages directly with a newly emerging European tradition"—that of the male bather. Eakins' picture, although not as stylistically progressive as the works of his French contemporaries, parallels the novel thematic direction taken by Bazille in Summer Scene, Georges Seurat
Georges-Pierre Seurat
Georges-Pierre Seurat was a French Post-Impressionist painter and draftsman. He is noted for his innovative use of drawing media and for devising a technique of painting known as pointillism...
(1859–91) (Bathers at Asnières, 1884) and Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
(1839–1906) in his numerous explorations of the subject. In 1906 Paul Sérusier
Paul Sérusier
Paul Sérusier was a French painter who was a pioneer of abstract art and an inspiration for the avant-garde Nabi movement, Synthetism and Cloisonnism.- Education :...
one of the founders of the Nabi movement
Les Nabis
Les Nabis were a group of Post-Impressionist avant-garde artists who set the pace for fine arts and graphic arts in France in the 1890s. Initially a group of friends interested in contemporary art and literature, most of them studied at the private art school of Rodolphe Julian in Paris in the...
painted Boys on a Riverbank, a painting of three boys swimming nude.
Eakins' work influenced the subsequent generation of American realists
American realism
300px|thumb|[[Ashcan School]] artists & friends at [[John French Sloan]]'s Philadelphia Studio, 1898American realism was an early 20th century idea in art, music and literature that showed through these different types of work, reflections of the time period...
, particularly the artists of the Ashcan School
Ashcan School
The Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, is defined as a realist artistic movement that came into prominence in the United States during the early twentieth century, best known for works portraying scenes of daily life in New York's poorer neighborhoods. The movement grew out of a group...
. George Bellows
George Bellows
George Wesley Bellows was an American realist painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City, becoming, according to the Columbus Museum of Art, "the most acclaimed American artist of his generation".-Youth:Bellows was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio...
' (1882–1925) Forty-two Kids, painted in 1907, bears obvious similarity to The Swimming Hole, although Bellows' painting has been interpreted as a parody of the Eakins, and the many naked children of the title are playing in the urban Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
rather than in a rural setting. In a sentiment that reflected Eakins' philosophy, Bellows later explained his motivation for painting Forty-two Kids: "Prizefighters and swimmers are the only types whose muscular action can be painted in the nude legitimately."
Eakins' widow's retitling of the picture after his death reinforced the popular association with the nostalgic sentiment of Riley's poem. More recently, the painting's subject has been compared to the poem "Song of Myself
Song of Myself
"Song of Myself" is a poem by Walt Whitman that is included in his work Leaves of Grass. It has been credited as “representing the core of Whitman’s poetic vision.”-Publication history:...
" by Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
(1819–92), particularly the section "Twenty-Eight Young Men Bathe by the Shore", given the shared interest in the imagery of men bathing in the nude. Whitman may have provided inspiration: the celebration of nudity, which in Whitman's case was an open expression of his homosexuality, informs the art of both men. In 1895, one of Eakins' male students reminisced about "us Whitman fellows", which has been interpreted as a reference to homosexuality. "But for their marital status, however, virtually nothing concrete is known of the private realms or sexual propensities of any of the men depicted (in The Swimming Hole), with the exception of Eakins."
Platonic love
Platonic love is a chaste and strong type of love that is non-sexual.-Amor Platonicus:The term amor platonicus was coined as early as the 15th century by the Florentine scholar Marsilio Ficino. Platonic love in this original sense of the term is examined in Plato's dialogue the Symposium, which has...
vision of the male nude seen unselfconsciously in a natural setting, by the 1970s some American writers were beginning to see Eakins' work, and specifically The Swimming Hole, as having homoerotic implications. Critics have paid particular attention to the compositional prominence of the standing figure's buttocks, which has been interpreted as suggestive of "homoerotic interests". According to Jonathan Weinberg, The Swimming Hole marked the beginning of homoerotic imagery in American art. Eakins left a record simultaneously provocative and ambiguous on matters of sex. On the basis of the same visual evidence, that of the photographs, oil sketches, and the finished painting of swimmers, art historians have drawn markedly varying conclusions as to the artist's intent.