In order to make My Visual Vocabulary fun, I did a random search of Artists beginning with the letter E. I continue to work on the premise that I will follow the alphabet for a while, finding inspiration in that order. Who did I land on? None other than Thomas Eakins. Way back in my “art in the dark” classes, I came across the incredibly raw and vibrant works of Thomas Eakins. I put him in the back of my mind, often pulling his 1875 work The Gross Clinic out when thinking about light and impact.According to pbs.org’s American Masters “When Thomas Eakins died in 1916, he left behind a body of work unprecedented in American art for its depth, strength, perception, character, and commitment to realism. Yet during his life, Eakins sold less than thirty paintings. Rejected by the public and the art establishment of his day, it was only after his death that a new generation of scholars and critics recognized Eakins as one of America's greatest painters.”
The site quotes Walt Whitman, "I never knew of but one artist, and this is Tom Eakins, who could resist the temptation to see what they think ought to be rather than what is."
It is this quote that interests me and echoes a concept I encounter in many forums on observation. One of the greatest obstacles to creating realistic drawings and paintings is that the 
mind will interpret the “ness” of something, that is, what we believe something looks like in our mind, not necessarily what we actually see. Our mind tells us a table has four legs, so we draw that instead of what we see, which might only include three of the four legs. Using measuring tools and other techniques, we can isolate the parts and avoid rendering “table ness”—rather depicting the lines, shapes and shadows that we actually see.
mind will interpret the “ness” of something, that is, what we believe something looks like in our mind, not necessarily what we actually see. Our mind tells us a table has four legs, so we draw that instead of what we see, which might only include three of the four legs. Using measuring tools and other techniques, we can isolate the parts and avoid rendering “table ness”—rather depicting the lines, shapes and shadows that we actually see.The Philadelphia artist Eakins was a realist and a perfectionist. His compositions were carefully thought out and mechanically precise. As I recall, he thought that the painting should precisely convey the time, season, and environment of the setting. In his painting The Champion Single Sculls 
(Max Schmitt in a Single Scull), Eakins portrays his friend Max in a single rowing scull on an October day on the Schuylkill River in the afternoon. Eakins puts himself in the scull behind Schmitt.
(Max Schmitt in a Single Scull), Eakins portrays his friend Max in a single rowing scull on an October day on the Schuylkill River in the afternoon. Eakins puts himself in the scull behind Schmitt. The image tells a precise story and pinpoints so many things about that moment in time. It is a story so rich that “A poem titled The Mystery of Max Schmitt, written by Phillip Dacey in 2000, is based on the painting and is spoken from Schmitt’s point of view. It contemplates the changes the popular sport was about to undergo.” (Mental Floss, Feel Art Again: The Champion of Single Sculls, A. Fernandez)
If I remember correctly, Eakins was one of the first to use photography to study motion.
This little adventure in random research has revived an interest in Eakins. I will have to browse the many images of his “unprecedented” body of work for more entries into My Visual Vocabulary.
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