Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

William Innes Homer is H. Rodney Sharp Professor Emeritus of Art History at the University of Delaware. His many books include Thomas Eakins: His Life and Art (Abbeville), Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession, 1902 (Viking Studio), and Alfred Stieglitz and the American Avant-Garde (Little, Brown).

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"William Homer's edition of Thomas Eakins's Paris letters is a welcome contribution to the literature on (and by) one of our greatest painters. Nothing could be more impressive than the sheer imaginative and intellectual energy--also the constant good humor--with which the young Eakins meets the challenge waiting for him in Gérôme's studio as he takes the first crucial steps toward mastering the art of painting. More than ever, all admirers of Eakins's art are in Homer's debt."--Michael Fried, author ofWhy Photography Matters as Art as Never Before

"This invaluable book at last makes widely available the young Thomas Eakins's extensive correspondence from his years of study in Paris. Longtime Eakins biographer William Homer has edited these letters with illuminating insight and contextual information. Both the artist's own observations and the attendant commentary are likely to be indispensible for all future Eakins publications."--John Wilmerding, professor emeritus of American art, Princeton University

"Long awaited, this valuable collection of letters presents Thomas Eakins in his own words at a formative stage of his career, offering a fascinating record of triumphs and struggles as well as a lively display of the skills, interests, confident opinions, and complex personality of a great American artist."--Kathleen A. Foster, author ofThomas Eakins Rediscovered

"These letters give a fuller view of Thomas Eakins during his formative years as a student in Europe than we have ever had--his developing artistic understanding, his psychological drives, his friendships, his peculiarities and obsessions, and his views about Paris, its culture, and the works of art he saw while living there. This book makes a major contribution."--Elizabeth Johns, author ofThomas Eakins: The Heroism of Modern Life

"This invaluable book provides a useful and entertaining account of the early life and thoughts of one of nineteenth-century America's most significant artists. The hundreds of Eakins's letters gathered here contain a wealth of information about his youthful thought processes, opinions, and artistic development."--Martin A. Berger, author ofMan Made: Thomas Eakins and the Construction of Gilded Age Manhood

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THE PARIS LETTERS OF THOMAS EAKINS

Princeton University Press

Contents

Acknowledgments............................................................ixIntroduction Thomas Eakins: The Artist and His Letters.....................1Chapter 1 1866.............................................................9Chapter 2 1867.............................................................79Chapter 3 1868.............................................................187Chapter 4 1869.............................................................237Chapter 5 1870.............................................................293Chapter 6 The Spanish Notebook (1870)......................................299Chapter 7 Letters & Theories after 1870: A Summary.........................309Collection Code Key........................................................321List of Owners of Thomas Eakins Letters....................................323Selected Bibliography......................................................331Index......................................................................333Letter Credits and Permissions.............................................341

Chapter One

This letter was addressed in the main to Eakins's friend and classmate William (Billy) Sartain, and deals with the fine points of language and word origins. Ranging from English to Latin, Italian, French, and German (which, following a convention of the day, he called Dutch), Eakins demonstrated a characteristically analytic approach, showing (or showing off) his wide knowledge of the subject. At the end of the letter he added a note on German linguistics for Billy's sister Emily.

William was a son of the venerable John Sartain, a noted Philadelphia engraver and friend of Benjamin Eakins. William was close to Thomas, both boys having attended Zane Street elementary school and Central High School together. Like Eakins, William studied to become an artist, first in Philadelphia, and then in Paris. Although William gained some popular success, he is forgotten today.

Emily, the daughter of John Sartain, was a Philadelphia portrait painter and engraver who had studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under the aging Christian Schussele in 1864-70. For a time she and Eakins were romantically linked, but by 1868, the relationship had cooled. In later years she served as the principal of the Philadelphia School of Design for Women.

June 12th.66.

Dear Billy,

Naf, of which when I last saw you, I did not know the root, comes, losing a t, from the Latin Nativus (Nol & Chapsal) and therefore coincides exactly with our Natural and Ingenuous.

The principal idea of natural qualities as applied to persons, is that of those passively received, as opposed [to] those acquired by their own doing, and here we can build many synonyms.

Artless. This word of your suggestion is very strong, because of the frequent contrast of nature and art.

Unaffected. Ad, to. Facio, (feat, fact, factory[,] etc.) to make. Not made, brought, put on-to.

Unassuming. Ad, to. Sumo (sumptuous, etc,) to take.

Open. The Dutch [sic, read German] of the verb to open is to auf-machen, to make up. I conceive our open to be formed in a similar way from the root of our to pain. The word is then discovered, that is nothing is concealed, nothing has been pulled over, or affected.

Sincere. Sinc without Cera, wax. (Schmitz & Zumpt.[)] One of the meanings of Cera is a paint for women. The second definition of naf in Nol & Chapsal is sans fard, and the first definition of Fard by the same is "Composition cosmtique qui imite les couleurs naturelles de la peau["] [a cosmetic compound that imitates the natural color of the skin]. I think cera is contracted from to smear as our marrow is from the same word. In contracting a word, it often happens that one language will lose one letter and another another [sic]. Example. Lat. Monstrare. Fr. Montrer. Ital. Mostrare.

Unpretending. Tendo, to stretch, Prae. Not to hold or stretch before.

Undisguised. Guise has probably the radical sense of drawing on, covering, holding or containing (See Webster on Wise.) Nol & Chapsal bring it from the same source.

Candid. (Candidus, white.) From the root to cant, whose purest, most abstract signification is in the phrase to cant a stone. From this we have to tilt as in the phrase to cant a barrel over on its side. Hence cant, to whine as a beggar, as the Dutch sprechen is to break (to cant) out (A. Cyclopedia) Latin, Canto to sing, English, chant, canto. Latin, Canto, to sing, English, can, to be able, press forward. From this comes also the sense to dart-rays, to shine, to be clear. Hence Candidus white. Hence, candidate.

Simple. Sine, without, ply. P-ly, To lay upon, or over or to (Webster.) whence our apply, comply, reply, complex, implicate, etc. and plait, but this last word when applied to shirt bosoms I have always heard called pleet, and this is not in my dictionary or I know not how to spell it.

Unstudied. Study. To set the mind to. Steed & Stud.

Frank. Prank, franchir, friend, frango[,] etc.

Unpremeditated. Nearly the same as Unstudied. There are I suppose many more.

I have made mention of the contrast of nature and art, and of how the last synonyms depended on a passiveness of being born (for that is Nature.) Yet Nature and Art are but the same words. Nature is from L. Natus, born, and this from Gnatus, and this from Gigno or Geno, to generate, bear, create; and Nature is what is created or shaped; that is the Creation. Tell Emily to look in her Dutch dictionary[.] Now Art (so thinks Webster) is but a contraction of the word to create. (See Art, Create, Cry, Can[,] etc.)

* * *

It's time to go swimming. I saw the lightning bugs last night.

* * *

Dear Emily, You called my attention to the childish word liefer, Deutsch, lieber. Did it ever strike you that even such a verb as to love implies and contains motion as its principle [sic] element, and that one always loves to and not away from a person. I have an affection for him, (Translation, to make forwards to). I have an inclination for him. I yearn towards him (Ich habe ihn gern.) How close then comes love to laufen. Laufen brings us to the English life, live, leave. Another class of verbs, having the same radical meaning that is of going towards, are those of intention. I have the intention says I tend towards. I propose says, I put forward. I will (ich will) (wollen) is the Latin volo to stretch forward (Deutsch Welle, a wave) and this brings us toValeo, to be strong, from a going forward. A man therefore while he lives goes after the fashion of a clock, er luft, he lives. How are you? How goes it? Valeo. I am well. T.C.E.

This letter was undated, but its subject and style reflected Eakins's thinking around the time he left for Paris in September 1866. As in his letter of June 12, 1866, to William, he wrestled with the fine points of literature, in this case analyzing passages from Virgil's Aeneid and Dante's Inferno. The majority of...