Thomas Eakins and the Cultures of Modernity

Download or read book Thomas Eakins and the Cultures of Modernity written by Alan C. Braddock and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2009-03-31 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Thomas Eakins and the Cultures of Modernity is the first book to situate Philadelphia's greatest realist painter in relation to the historical discourse of cultural difference. In this study Alan C. Braddock reveals that modern anthropological perceptions of "culture," which many art historians attribute to Eakins, did not become current until after the artist's death in 1916. Braddock finds in the work of Thomas Eakins a lifelong engagement with aesthetic and social currents that extended well beyond his native city of Philadelphia, indicating the persistence of a worldly sensibility long after he had concluded his formative studies in Europe during the 1860s. Braddock shows how Eakins developed a localized cosmopolitanism all his own, based in Philadelphia but tapped into a global field of visual production."--Jacket.