Commentary on Kathrin, a portrait by Thomas Eakins

摘要

We can learn from a painting that it is possible to grasp the significance of a person's entire life in the space of an instant. Thomas Eakins' portrait of a young woman named Kathrin is such a painting. Considered one of America's great realist painters, Eakins (1844-1916) is well known for his portraits of esteemed members of Philadelphia's community. The Gross Clinic (1875) and The Agnew Clinic (1889) are massive oil paintings portraying, respectively, Dr. Gross and Dr. Agnew, renowned surgeons of their day. In the portraits, the figures of these men tower over the viewer and depict, through their bearing and through their particular gestures as surgeons in the operating theater, a commanding presence. The portraits represent the surgeons as having mastered the human body and human emotion by means of science, technique, and the art of medicine.