The work “Place for swimming” belongs to the work of the American painter – Thomas Eakins. The canvas caused a storm of emotions among critics who, referring to the author’s special love for the naked body, consider the painting the “crowning achievement” of Eakins. By analyzing the “Place for bathing” components, art critics saw autobiography in the plot narrative.
Among the six naked men, Eakins himself was identified, moving from right to left – he is the very first to float in the waters of an artificial reservoir, then – his red-haired dog Harry, this Irish setter, then – Jessie Goldie, J. Laurie Wallace, Benjamin Fox, and finally, Talcott Williams. Attention, no doubt, attracts a cape, woven from rocks and ledges. This is an artificially created pile, on which the Mill-Creek Mill is located. In 1873 the building was demolished together with the foundation.
Men are depicted in images of Nu, here there are no clothes, no shoes, nor any objects of the modern philistine of that era – primitive silence and unity of man with nature. The landscape and everything that was invested in the plot, proposed by the author in the form of a pyramid, the main emphasis – the image of man, as an end in itself of academic painting. What is unique is that Eakins stopped at the male images, while the basis of the academic writing of the human figure was made up of female bodies, as the very perfection of nature. The fact that the artist chose to perform people in the dynamics of the movement is an experiment, in addition to the subjects associated with sports and active recreation.
This is due to the traction of Eakins to mobile games and sportsmen, as the standard of the correct addition of human nature. Despite the lack of clothing and different staging of bodies, each of the characters covers the man’s head – a clever reception of frankness, coupled with modesty. All the characters are depicted in different poses, not like one another, as if the artist practices in the representation of a person and demonstrates his skill. Someone is half-doable, the other is sitting, the next is standing, the other is diving.
Men and boys have a point of support, this applies to those who are about to fall and seem to be frozen before a fall or a jump. On the central part of the work, the viewer’s attention seems to be focused – here everything happens, and the edges of the canvas smoothly leave in a barely-blurred landscape. Particular attention is attracted to the light, which seems unnaturally bright and far-fetched. Of course, in a picturesque performance “live” and contrast, and semitones. This made it possible to identify the main details, in particular, of friends and their naked skin on the general background, and also to give the landscape the greatest nature. Summer colors of a warm day give a special heat to the bathing scene. It’s dry ground from scorching beams, and at the same time, cool colors of shady trees, and a yellow grass of dried up lawns on the background of gloomy crowns.
Direct rays reflect on the mirror of the pond, while leaving a juicy white trace on the naked people. You can not pass by the importance of work in the work of Eakins. Many art critics admit that the author took for the main theme the beauty of the male body, bordering on eroticism and sexuality. The artist became an innovator in the narrative of the male nude, as the standard of the natural nature and the perfection of the relief of muscles, the right proportions and the plasticity of the body. “The place for swimming” has a different name – “The old place to swim,” perhaps the second name reveals to a greater extent the importance of the pond and the coast in the life of old friends. A canvas has long been considered a classic of American art in the world of painting.
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