Eakins revised

Magazine Antiques, June, 2005 by Alfred Mayor

Appended to the published manual are three other writings by the artist, the last of which, on refraction, concludes: "If then we form a lens with the first surface plane and the second that of a hyperboloid of which the eccentricity is to the semi-transverse as the index of refraction of the material of the lens is to unity, parallel rays incident perpendicularly upon the first surface of the lens will be refracted to the farther focus of the hyperboloid which forms the second surface."

Adams's apologia for his wide-ranging and relatively unflattering portrait of the artist is also a useful summary of his book: "The traditional literature on Eakins has pushed forward an obvious falsehood, that he was an individual of almost unparalleled honesty and virtue and that his art directly reflected the perfections of his character. While this was surely done to uplift Eakins's art, in the end it only undercuts its real significance. Eakins's paintings affect us as they do because they deal with powerful, tragic themes--depression, defeat, mental illness, loneliness, and anxieties of a truly horrible sort, such as castration and sexual assault. His life touches on a whole litany of psychological and social problems, including exhibitionism, obsessive compulsive syndrome, poor impulse control, misogyny, castration anxiety, sexual abuse, incest, and manic-depression. To conceal all this with sugary language, is to rob Eakins's paintings of their real meaning."

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Eakins Revealed: The Secret Life of an American Artist, by Henry Adams (Oxford University Press, 800-451-7556), $40.00 (hardcovers).

A Drawing Manual by Thomas Eakins, ed. and with an introduction by Kathleen A. Foster and with an essay by Amy B. Werbel (Philadelphia Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 800-405-1619), $21.95 (hardcovers).