Thomas Eakins
It is an artistic movement that appeared in France in the 1840s, around the 1848 Revolution.
It revolted against the drama of the Romantic movement. Instead, it attempted to accurately portray real contemporary people in live situations.
It showcased how things appeared to the eye rather than presenting ideal world representations.
Gloomy earth-toned palettes were used to ignore the beauty and idealization usually perceived in art. This controversial movement criticized social values and the upper classes. It reexamined the new values that came along with the industrial revolution. Realism is a direct observation of the modern world.
Realism in Art
It’s an artistic movement that appeared in France in the 1840s, around the 1848 Revolution.
It revolted against the drama of the Romantic movement. Instead, it attempted to portray in accuracy real contemporary people in live situations.
It showcased the way things appeared to the eye, rather than presenting ideal representations of the world.
Gloomy earth-toned palettes were used to ignore the beauty and idealization that was usually perceived in art. This controversial movement criticized social values and the upper classes. It reexamined the new values that came along with the industrial revolution. Realism is a direct observation of the modern world.
The Gross Clinic, 1875
It is an oil painting on canvas.
An art critic for the New York Tribune called it “one of the most powerful, horrible yet fascinating pictures that have been painted anywhere in this century ….”
It is daring and ambitious work. Controversial when it was first published in 1876, gaining praise and criticism.
It became an icon of Art in American History and a symbol of the prominent role that Philedaphia has played in its development.
It was part of the collection of the Philadelphia museum of art in 2006.
Eakins met Dr Samuel when he was attending dissection classes and surgeries at Jefferson medical school in 1861. That is when he became fascinated with the human body.
The painting was a submission for the centennial exposition. Eakins planned a unique entry to win him the reputation he seeks as “the old master” of art. The portrait of the most famous surgeon of that time. Ironically, this masterpiece was rejected by the jury of the art exhibition because it was shocking and frightening to them.
Dr Samuel D. Gross appears in the surgical amphitheatre at Philadelphia’s Jefferson Medical College, illuminated by the skylight overhead. The oculus light focuses specifically on his forehead to emphasize his intelligence. This Eakins’ brilliant use of natural light, similar to the technique of his favourite painters like Rembrandt and Velàzquez, serves a powerful emotional purpose while remaining true to his commitment to realism. The main goal was to memorize heroic figures of modern American life.
Dr gross appeared majestically calm while he was addressing his students, including the intent figure of Thomas Eakins. He is the one seated at the right edge of the canvas.
Being in such a medical environment is gruesome, which explains why Eakins made parts of the painting very dark to create an intense mood of drama and suggest the clinic room’s deep stillness. The shadowed audience makes you intentionally focus more on the main subject of the painting, which is how the operation is conducted.
Five doctors, in total, were part of a life-threatening bone infection that required drastic treatment at that time. (one of whom is obscured by Dr Gross) They are all attending to the young patient, whose left thigh, bony buttocks, and sock-clad feet are all visible to the viewer.
Chief of Clinic Dr James M. Barton leans over the patient, investigating the incision curiously. At the same time, junior assistant Dr Charles S. Briggs held the patient’s legs, and Dr Daniel M. Appel kept the incision open with a retractor. The anaesthetist (Dr W. Joseph Hearn) holds a folded napkin over the patient’s face to get him to sleep while the clinic clerk (Dr Franklin West) records the proceedings.
A woman at the left, traditionally identified as the patient’s mother, is sitting on the floor and shielding her eyes. The scene was terrifying to her to see her son’s blood everywhere on the table.
Samuel David Gross
He was born in 1805 and died in 1884. He was an American academic trauma surgeon. Also known as “The Emperor of American Surgery.”
The operation presented in The Gross Clinic demonstrates one of Gross’s areas of particular expertise: the removal of dead tissue from the thighbone of a patient suffering from a bone infection. This procedure outshines how revolutionary treatment for this disease was.
There was a new understanding of the body’s anatomy and ability to heal itself. Gross was an inspiration to his students, including Eakins. He taught them his vision of the dramatic progress in American medicine in the nineteenth century and pioneered the research and innovation of Philadelphia’s scientific community.
References :
www.thomaseakins.org. (n.d.). Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins – The Complete Works – thomaseakins.org. [online] Available at: https://www.thomaseakins.org/.
Finocchio, R. (2004). Nineteenth-Century French Realism. [online] The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Available at: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/rlsm/hd_rlsm.htm.
philamuseum.org. (n.d.). Portrait of Dr. Samuel D. Gross (The Gross Clinic). [online] Available at: https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/299524.
pew.org. (2006). Fact Sheet: The Gross Clinic. [online] Available at: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/fact-sheets/2006/12/21/fact-sheet-the-gross-clinic.
www.youtube.com. (n.d.). ‘Portrait of Dr. Samuel D. Gross (The Gross Clinic)’ by Thomas Eakins. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szH_sLWc4SM