Swimming

Swimming displays Thomas Eakins’s interest in scientific analyses of bodies in motion. The arrangement of the swimmers suggested the sequential movement of a single figure through the pictorial space. As head of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Eakins felt the human form was central to modern art and made the study of the nude integral to his teaching. Because the figures in this painting were easily identifiable as the artist and his students (Eakins is at the far right swimming toward his dog, Henry), reactions to the subject matter overshadowed his artistic intentions. Mounting charges of indecency eventually forced Eakins’s resignation from his prestigious post at the academy.