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Paris as Proving Ground: Part I |
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Thomas Eakins (1844–1916)
Pushing for Rail, 1874
Oil on canvas; 13 x 30 1/16 in. (33 x 76.4 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Arthur Hoppock Hearn Fund, 1916 (16.65)
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When Eakins returned to his native Philadelphia after studying in Paris from 1866 until 1870, he applied the principles he had learned from Jean-Léon Gérôme and Léon Bonnat to familiar local subjects. Pushing for Rail and Starting Out after Rail depict a sport that was popular in New Jersey's tidal marshes and along the Delaware River—hunting for rail, small game birds that were plentiful in the region. They demonstrate Eakins's ability to describe convincing volumetric forms in carefully organized compositions enhanced with closely studied details. In spring 1874 Eakins sent Starting Out after Rail (and another oil that cannot be securely identified) to Adolphe Goupil, Gérôme's Parisian art dealer, and sought Gérôme's critique. In spring 1875 he sent four more paintings, including Pushing for Rail, to Paris for display in the Salon. When the four pictures arrived too late, Gérôme substituted the two canvases already in Goupil's stock to represent his star American pupil.
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