Thomas Eakins (American)(1844-1916),The Dancing Lesson1878medium-watercolor on wove papermovement-Realism
Encouraged by the positive reception of his large-scale watercolors in an exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts,Eakins's sent this striking work and two other figure subjects to the 1878 American Watercolor Society in New York.For twenty-first century viewers the intergenerational scene appears to emphasize the individualized figure's post-Civil War emancipation (note the framed image of Abraham Lincoln with his son Tad at upper left). Nineteenth Century critics interpreted the subject as a "comedy of plantation life"more akin to Eakins old-fashioned subjects than a contemporary and sympathetic encounter.When it was sent to a Boston exhibition later than year,it earned the artist his first award a silver metal.
Thomas Eakins (American)(1844-1916),The Dancing Lesson1878medium-watercolor on wove papermovement-Realism
Encouraged by the positive reception of his large-scale watercolors in an exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts,Eakins's sent this striking work and two other figure subjects to the 1878 American Watercolor Society in New York.For twenty-first century viewers the intergenerational scene appears to emphasize the individualized figure's post-Civil War emancipation (note the framed image of Abraham Lincoln with his son Tad at upper left). Nineteenth Century critics interpreted the subject as a "comedy of plantation life"more akin to Eakins old-fashioned subjects than a contemporary and sympathetic encounter.When it was sent to a Boston exhibition later than year,it earned the artist his first award a silver metal.