Thomas Eakins - The Agnew Clinic

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Inspired by: Thomas Eakins - The Agnew Clinic

This painting was commissioned in 1889, to honor anatomist and surgeon David Hayes Agnew, on his retirement from teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. His students put up the $750 (equivalent to $21,600 today) to pay for the depiction. Each student came to Eakins studio to be sketched for placement in the final painting. Eakins placed himself in the painting on the far right behind the nurse – although the actual painting of him is attributed to his wife, Susan Macdowell Eakins.

It depicts a mastectomy, which was a novel procedure. Despite the lack of expectation of cure, it was an attempt to lengthen the life of the patient. The portrayal of a procedure in which a partially nude woman is observed by a roomful of men (even though they were doctors) was controversial. It was denied a spot in 1891's Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and 1892's New York's Society of American Artists. One art critic warned that “delicate women or children suddenly confronted by the portrayal of these clinical horrors might receive a shock from which they would never recover.” Agnew asked not to have as much blood as seen in the Gross clinic (one cause for its rejection). His hands are covered in liquid, which would have been used for sterilization, rather than blood.

To see original: bit.ly/4c9bCJQ

Piero di Cosimo - Portraits da Sangallo

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Inspired by: Piero di Cosimo - Portraits da Sangallo 

Giuliano da Sangallo was an architect along with his father, uncles and his son. Giuliano commissioned these portraits soon after his father’s death. A death mask was probably used to recreate his father’s likeness. This diptych is an early example of a portrait in which the subject’s profession plays a key role. On the table in front of each subject lies the tools of their profession. Giuliano got a pen and dividers for architecture, but Francesco, who was not only an architect but more importantly a musician, got a piece of sheet music. Giuliano was a part of the Renaissance scene. He assisted in the design of St Peter’s Basilica. He was also called upon to help Michelangelo remove mold from the Sistine Chapel ceiling after the younger artist had applied too wet a plaster. Originally Piero di Lorenzo, Cosimo took the name of his master Cosimo Rosselli. He also took his daughter in marriage, and assisted him in his Sistine Chapel frescos. During his lifetime, Piero acquired a reputation for eccentricity. Reportedly, he was deathly afraid of thunderstorms, and so pyrophobic that the only food he cooked was hard-boiled eggs, which he prepared 50 at a time while boiling glue for his artworks. The great historian Vasari wrote, “Through his brutish ways he was rather held to be a madman. He could not stand babies crying, men coughing, bells ringing, or friars chanting,”  See original: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/SK-C-1367

Tahitian Women on the Beach - Paul Gaugin

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Inspired by Paul Gaugin - Tahitian Women on the Beach

Born in Peru, he emigrated to France, and secured a job as a stockbroker in Paris. He did quite well as a broker. By the age of 31 he was pulling down 30,000 Francs a year, the equivalent of about $150,000 today. At the age of 35 he gave it all up to be a painter. This new job was not a success, so in 1891 he left his wife and five children and headed for Tahiti. He stayed there for ten years, returning once to try to sell his work and raise capital to return. His life in Tahiti was tempestuous. He married three times, all teenage island girls (13 and 14). This was considered a marriageable age in the Tahitian culture, but in western culture it is considered pedophilia. Gaugin was not the only French colonist that took advantage of the Tahitians desire for status or financial gain. These weddings were not legally binding and all three of his wives eventually left him. Gaugin used his wives for the models in countless paintings. The model for both of the women in this painting is Teha’amana, his first Tahitian muse, lover and eventually wife.

In 1901 when he became seriously ill with syphilis and in trouble with the French authorities, he left town. Alone and impoverished, Gauguin died of a stroke in the Marquesas Islands on May 8, 1903. He has been championed and reviled by art history. His painting was magnificent, but his lifestyle seems unacceptable.

If you would like to see the original painting: bit.ly/43HIFQS

Édouard Manet - The Balcony

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Inspired by Édouard Manet - The Balcony

All the models are friends or relatives of Manet. Painter Berthe Morisot is the lady sitting on the left. Standing in the back is another painter Jean Baptiste Antoine Guillemet. On the right is the violinist Fanny Claus (no kidding). The fourth figure, partially obscured in the interior's background, is possibly Léon Leenhoff, Manet's son. Berthe Morisot was one of the three important female Impressionists. She was one of Manet’s favorite models. This was the first portrait Manet did of her. Then he painted her 11 more times. She would become the wife of his brother, Eugène.

There were many iterations of this painting. It was inspired by Majas on the Balcony by Francisco Goya. Which was very similar, and which Manet gave attribution. This painting was just a redo. and it took Manet a couple of shots at to get it right. In his first version there were two women on a balcony. The name of that painting is Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus (no kidding). In the first version Fanny is seated in the chair and Berthe is standing, back to painter. In this version he added two more characters and made Berthe sit and Fanny stand. Oh, and he threw in a dog with a bow in its hair beneath Morrisot’s chair. Then Surrealist René Magritte painted Perspective II: Manet's Balcony in 1950, a commentary on this work. In Magritte’s version there are four coffins (one "seated") in place of the four people. Magritte said "For me the setting of The Balcony offered a suitable place to put coffins. The 'mechanism' at work here might form the object of a learned explanation, which I am unable to provide.”

The painting was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1869, and then kept by Manet until his death in 1883.

To see original: https://bit.ly/3rtj39s

Grant Wood – American Gothic

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Inspired by Grant Wood – American Gothic – 1930

Wood's inspiration came from what is now known as the American Gothic House, and his decision to paint the house along with "the kind of people I fancied should live in that house." When asked what, American Gothic was about, Wood often said that it was really about architecture. The house seemed to him typically American. He found the house in Eldon, Iowa and made several sketches. In the painting the pitch fork and the shirt connect us to the lines of the building behind. The pattern on the woman’s dress relates to the shades in the window. The elongated faces of the models go with the elongated windows.

The figures were modeled by Wood's sister, Nan Wood Graham, and his dentist, Dr. Byron McKeeby. Wood’s first choice for a female model was his mother, Hattie. However, he was concerned that posing at length would be too much for her. So, in her stead his sister Nan sat in. Nan, was embarrassed at being depicted as the wife of someone twice her age - and began telling people that the painting was of a man and his daughter. 

The painting came to be seen in the Great Depression as a depiction of steadfast American pioneer spirit. Wood was quoted as saying, "All the good ideas I've ever had came to me while I was milking a cow."  Wood entered his painting in a competition at the Art Institute of Chicago. It received the bronze medal and a $300 cash prize.  As the painting gained attention it was reproduced in newspapers. Iowans were furious at their depiction.  One farm-wife threatened to bite Wood's ear off.  To that Wood said, He didn't paint a caricature of Iowans but rather “a depiction of Americans”.

Jean-François Millet - The Gleaners

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Inspired by - Jean-François Millet - The Gleaners

Jean-François Millet
The Gleaners - 1857 - Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Santa Classics - 2015
Millet once said, ’’The human side of art is what touches me most." In The Gleaners, he depicts poor women collecting grain from the fields after the harvest. Millet first hung The Gleaners at the Salon in 1857. It immediately drew negative criticism from the upper classes. Having recently gone through the revolution of 1848, it was viewed with trepidation. Critics said this Image glorified the working class. To them it was a reminder that French society was built on the shoulders of the working masses. They associated the representation with the growing movement of socialism. Also, this large size was usually reserved for religious or mythological subjects. But here was used to represent the plight of the poor. Because of this criticism, after the exhibition the painting was sold for 3,000 francs well below Millet’s asking price of 4,000 francs. Twenty years later, when Millet’s popularity was on the rise, it was sold for 300,000 francs.
Gleaning was the collecting of edible leftover’s, after the crop had been harvested. In France, this had been permitted by law since 1554 and remains on the books today. The reasoning for this stems from the Old Testament. “When you’re harvesting your field, if you forget a sheaf, don’t go back into the field to get it. Let the foreigners, orphans and widows take it. If you do this, the Eternal your God will bless everything you do.” Maybe this was not generosity, but the farmer’s hope for continued good harvests. To see original: https://bit.ly/3uYf19u