Thursday, November 29, 2012

Art Lesson/Serendipity

     I'd never heard of the guy; found him via a simple series of links, from the Trotify to Eadweard Muybridge (of galloping-horse photographic study fame) to Thomas Eakins, who had the misfortune of being a photo-accurate painter in a romantic age; people wanted idealized images and he gave them...the world as it was.  Unsurprisingly, he was an avid photographer and made much use of photographic studies in his work.  Over a century later, he remains a bit controversial but there is no denying his skill.

     One of his subjects was Frank Hamilton Cushing, a kind of real-life, anthropological Indiana Jones and one of the earliest, if not the first, anthropologists to jump in with both feet and try to understand a culture from the inside.  How immersive?  Try, "After some initial difficulties (the Zuni seriously considered killing him as he was obviously after their secrets...."  Yikes!

3 comments:

Old NFO said...

That's an interesting set of twists and turns down the rabbit hole! :-)

Anonymous said...

Eakins may be best known in the rowing community because of his paintings of competitive rowing and sculling.

Anonymous said...

Gun owners get all bent when a restaurant or other business says "no concealed handguns." They hand out cards saying that they won't be patronizing the establishment, etc.

Yet most gun stores put up the same damn sign.