John Biglin in a Single Scull

"He believed that great artists relied not on their knowledge of other artists’ works but on personal experience." Thomas Eakins himself picked up rowing on the Schuylkill river. The sport of rowing was increasing greatly and basically anyone could join. Before he even started drawing in the nude he had a great fasination with atonomy so drawing people in movement only came naturaly. Him painting John Biglin was becasue he was a superstar in the sport of rowing. Thomas picked the moment when he was in mid race in the heat from the sun and about to put his oars back in the water after doing a backward stroke to capture as his painting.

                                          "The painstaking process seems to have paid off. Eakins sent a replica of ,

John Biglin to his Paris teacher, Jean-Léon Gérôme

to demonstrate the progress he’d made since returning to

Philadelphia. Gérôme praised Eakins’s watercolor as “entirely

good.” “I am very pleased,” he wrote, “to have in the New

World a pupil such as you who does me honor."

Thomas Eakins

He mainly painted portraits of his friends family and people of the arts, science, medicine and clergy He showed the intellectual life of Philadelphia. Painting outside let him paint the subjects he was most inspired by; the nude or light clad figure in motion. He was an art painter and was greatly inspired by his art classes.

Some more of Eakins art!

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/eapa/hd_eapa.htm

This link shows some of Eakins paintings and you can tell just how different his art was from the time period that he created it in

“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.” – Walt Whitman

Thomas Eakins was rejected by the public and the art district but after his death his art attracted the attention of a new generation who become very interested in it and he was then recognized as one of Americas greatest painters.