Thomas Eakins painted several versions of this imaginary scene, in which the early nineteenth-centur
Thomas Eakins painted several versions of this imaginary scene, in which the early nineteenth-century woodcarver and sculptor William Rush works on his wood fountain figure Water Nymph and Bittern. Eakins identified with Rush—they were both from Philadelphia and Rush was a founder of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where Eakins taught for ten years.Although Eakins originally chose this subject to restore Rush’s name to the history of American art, his focus on the nude model also raises the issue of traditional methods of art instruction. Eakins was a staunch proponent of learning from the nude, and he was dismissed from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1886 for using a nude male model in a mixed class of men and women.Posted by Connie H. Choi -- source link
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