Name:
The Champion Single Sculls (Max Schmitt in a Single Scull)
Author:
Thomas Eakins (American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1844–1916 Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania)
Date:
1871
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Type:
Painting
Description:
It depicts Eakins' boyhood friend Max Schmitt (1843–1900), a champion oarsman, in a scull
on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia.
Eakins depicted himself in the distant boat, rowing away from Schmitt.
The bridges behind the rowers can be identified as the Girard Avenue Bridge and the
Connecting Railroad Bridge, respectively.
It is believed that this work commemorates Max Schmitt's victory in a single-scull
competition on October 5, 1870. A number of drawings for various parts of this composition
exist. (Eakins, 1871)
Eakins was witness to Schmitt's victory in October. The painting's composition echoes the
event by reproducing the weather conditions and position of the sun at the date and time of
Schmitt's triumph.
Realism:
After studying in France Thomas Eakins is an American Realist.
Realism in France appears after the 1848 Revolution.
These realists positioned themselves against romanticism, a genre dominating French
literature and artwork in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Seeking to be undistorted by personal bias, Realism believed in the ideology of objective
reality and revolted against the exaggerated emotionalism of the Romantic Movement.
While Romanticism focused on the inner, spiritual side of human nature, and was skewed
toward the exceptional and Sublime, Realism focused on the mundane, the everyday.
Realism focussed on the ideology of objective reality and revolted against exaggerated
emotionalism of Romanticism. It was more "democratic" in orientation, interested in the life
of the majority, not the elite.
As artistic strategy, it was an attempt to focus literature on the objective, the concrete; the
physical and social milieu depicted in painstaking detail to convey the ethos of the society.
Characters were portrayed in their social setting, which shaped their actions and their choices.
Realism is often referred to as an attempt to portray things "as they are," but in fact, it was
itself another artistic strategy, employing verisimilitude for artistic ends. (Encyclopedia, n.d.)
Truth and accuracy became the goals of many Realists. Many paintings depicted people at
work, underscoring the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution and Commercial
Revolutions, often from actual copying of real world scenarios.
The popularity of such 'realistic' works grew with the introduction of photography — a new
visual source that created desire for people to produce representations which look
“objectively real.”
Also called Photorealism which is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and
other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce
the image as realistically as possible in another medium. (Wikipedia, 2015)
Message:
The painting believed to commemorate the victory of Max Schmitt (1843–1900), an attorney
and skilled amateur rower, in an important race on the Schuylkill River in October 1870.
Also an avid rower, Eakins depicted himself pulling the oars of a scull in the middle distance.
Photography:
Photography had a big effect on Realism as it changed long hours of gruelling inch perfect
painting, to a well calculated and angled photo to accurately represents aspects of reality.
This revolutionized modern art to more than art, but also to a science.
Photography took effect right after the influence of the Paris salon began to decline and
the Romantic ideal of the “artist as hero” rises. (Dugan, 1880)
Using Photography to support personal statement
My brother has always enjoyed Art from an early age because I wasn’t very interested in it.
My earliest memory of this is his doodling on sheets of computer paper and cutting up old
Christmas cards to make new images.
My brother used most of his childhood just drawing and being inspired to make and design
anything and everything!
His love of Art has stayed with him, developed and grown and, now, he cannot imagine
wanting to do anything else...
The image above stands for one of the early predecessors of photography, with high-quality
details to an actual event that occurred.
It properly blends nature and the man at work together, with the jubilation of the man who
conquers natures’ tough demands in the best and fastest way. To think that all these things
and more can be captured in one photo is my ultimate inspiration.
My brother would take a photograph of modern sculls as they compete in a professional
competition. This would highly signify the continuity of the sport as well as the continuity of
realism through photography.
The photo would preferably be taken at the finish line where, it would represent the high
competitiveness of the modern sport. The photo should capture the beautiful background, the
surrounding infrastructure, the competition markers and most importantly the competitors.
The Photo would be created by setting up various cameras at different angles to achieve the
best shot, as well as taking panorama shots so as to have an accurate representation of what I
want out of the photo through editing of a large variety of data.
The photos taken would then be edited using computer editing tools like Adobe Photoshop,
which would allow me to put together the required shots and sceneries to acquire the intended
outlook of the photo. The tools would also help in fine tuning the right photo to achieve a
good mix of lighting and background blending.
Other tools used would include a camera, lighting for indoor games, camera stands and
filters.
The intention would be to display the photo right next to Eakins’ photo at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art. The photo is meant for all public to see.
The photo is meant to symbolize the simplicity of human evolution through art. It is also
meant to show how much humanity borrows from both history and art as a form of record
keeping, in general, so as to make further progress in making future events and artworks.
Thomas Eakins was commemorating the victory of Max Schmitt. The photo is meant to
signify a person winning (preferably on the same date as Eakins painting) so as to signify
evolution of art. The painting also signifies people doing what they liked to do, which would
also be properly brought out by the photo.
References
Dugan, B. (1880). Retrieved from Big Think: http://bigthink.com/Picture-This/howphotography-changed-painting-and-vice-versa
Eakins, T. (1871). Retrieved from The Metropolitan Museum of Art:
http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/10819
Encyclopedia, N. W. (n.d.). Retrieved from New World Encyclopedia:
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Realism
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