Focus on The Swimming Hole and analyze the Title and composition.
Eakins referred to the painting as Swimming in 1885, and as The Swimmers in 1886. The title The Swimming Hole dates from 1917 (the year after Eakins died), when the work was so described by the artist's widow, Susan Macdowell Eakins. Four years later, she titled the work The Old Swimming Hole, in reference to the 1882 poem The Old Swimmin'-Hole; by James Whitcomb Riley. The Amon Carter Museum has since returned to Eakins' original title, Swimming.The painting shows Eakins and five friends or students bathing at Dove Lake, an artificial lake in Mill Creek outside Philadelphia. Each of the men is looking at the water, in the words of Martin A. Berger, "apparently lost in a contemplative moment". Eakins' precise rendering of the figures has enabled scholars to identify all those depicted in the work. They are (from left to right): Talcott Williams (1849–1928), Benjamin Fox (c. 1865 – c. 1900), J. Laurie Wallace (1864–1953), Jesse Godley (1862–1889), Harry the dog (Eakins' Irish Setter, c. 1880–90), George Reynolds (c. 1839–89), and Eakins himself. The rocky promontory on which several of the men rest is the foundation of the Mill Creek mill, which was razed in 1873. It is the only sign of civilization in the work—no shoes, clothes, or bath houses are visible. The foliage in the background provides a dark background against which the swimmers' skin tones contrast. The composition is pyramidal. The figure reclining at left leads the viewer's eye to the seated figure, whose gesture in turn points to Godley at the apex of the compositional pyramid. The diving figure at right leads to the swimming form of Eakins, who painted himself into the scene and whose leftward movement directs attention back into the painting. Eakins enforces this pyramidal structure by manipulating the focus of the painting: the center area containing the swimmers is extremely precise, while the outer areas are diffuse, with "virtually no moderating zones in between". The lighting within the picture is unnatural—too bright in some places, and too dark in others—although the effect, which tends to accentuate the body lines of the swimmers, is generally subtle.The composition is notable for both its adherence to academic tradition (the mastery of the figure as an end in itself), and its uniqueness in transposing the male nude to an outdoor setting. The depiction of someone diving into water was very rare in the history of Western art. The other figures are artfully arranged to imply a continuous narrative of movement, the poses progressing "from reclining to sitting to standing to diving"; at the same time, each figure is carefully positioned so that no genitalia are visible. As in his previous works, Eakins chose to include a self-portrait, here as the swimmer at bottom-right. Unlike his appearances in The Gross Clinic or Max Schmitt in a Single Scull, here the artist's presence is more ambiguous—he may be seen as companion, teacher, or voyeur. The ripple in the water next to Eakins, and the bubbles around the diver, are the only indications of movement in a painting where motion is otherwise arrested; the water next to the red-headed figure in the lake is still enough to offer a clear reflection. This contrast underscores the tension in the picture between classical prototypes and scientific naturalism.
The positioning of the bodies and their musculature refers to classical ideals of physical beauty and masculine camaraderie evocative of Greek art. The reclining figure is a paraphrase of the Dying Gaul, and is juxtaposed with the far less formal self-depiction by the artist. It is possible that Eakins was seeking to reconcile an ancient theme with a modern interpretation; the subject was contemporary, but the poses of some of the figures recall those of classical sculpture. One possible influence by a contemporary source was Scène d'été, painted in 1869 by Frédéric Bazille (1841–70). It is not unlikely that Eakins saw the painting at the Salon while studying in Paris, and would have been sympathetic to its depiction of male bathers in a modern setting.In Eakins' oeuvre, The Swimming Hole was immediately preceded by a number of similar works on the Arcadian theme. These correspond to lectures he gave on Ancient Greek sculpture and were inspired by the Pennsylvania Academy's casts of Phidias' Pan-Athenaic procession from the Parthenon marbles. A series of photographs, relief sculptures, and oil sketches culminated in the 1883 Arcadia, a painting that also featured nude figures—posed for by a student, a nephew, and the artist's fiancée—in a pastoral landscape.
Susan Macdowell Eakins Ancient Greek sculpture Amon Carter Museum self-portrait Salon Scène d'été Arcadia Irish Setter Phidias Arcadian J. Laurie Wallace right Mill Creek Dove Lake James Whitcomb Riley Greek art Frédéric Bazille focus oil The Gross Clinic Parthenon marbles Western art Dying Gaul Academy Talcott Williams oil sketch left academic tradition Max Schmitt in a Single Scull