Focus on this artwork and analyze the Background.
In the final decade of his active career (c. 1900–1910), Thomas Eakins painted a series of portraits of Catholic clergy. In all over a dozen clergy sat for Eakins, more than any other single profession.The series came about through Eakins's relationship with Samuel Murray, a former student and close companion. Murray was a staunch Catholic with strong ties to the Philadelphia Irish-American Catholic community. As St. Charles Borromeo Seminary was only about two miles from Eakins's home, the two chose it as a destination for their Sunday bicycle excursions, often staying for late afternoon vespers service and dinner.While the genesis of the series is clear enough, Eakins's motivations are less readily apparent. A lifelong agnostic who was outspokenly critical of Christianity in general – and Catholicism in particular – Eakins debated Christ's divinity with Monsignor James P. Turner, who later sat for him, and would "smile superciliously whenever someone spoke of future life." Furthermore, most of these portraits were gifts, not commissions – initiated at Eakins's request and completed at his own expense. These gifts were not always well received by their recipients, either: Dr. Patrick J. Garvey hid his under his bed, and the portraits of Mother Mary Patricia Waldron and Bishop Edmond Prendergast were lost, presumed destroyed.
Kirkpatrick suggests that Eakins respected the clerics as intellectuals despite not seeing eye-to-eye with them on spiritual matters – several were accomplished scholars. Eakins may also have appreciated their lack of worldly pretense, a trait which he shared. Schendler wrote that priestly vestments offered "possibilities of form and color not available to [Eakins] in the dark suits of Philadelphia businessmen." Adams speculated that Eakins decided to paint clerical portraits because he was intrigued by "the sexually ambiguous quality of priestly clothes", and "the way that the clergy appeared to cross normal gender boundaries", though later biographers such as Kirkpatrick have dismissed this interpretation.
Selected clerical portraits by Eakins
Thomas Eakins Christ's divinity future life St. Charles Borromeo Seminary Catholic portrait vespers Samuel Murray