Photograph 1910

This photograph was made by Thomas Eakins; when is less clear, but we can think of it like a painting. In black and white, a woman stands in a garden. It's full of light, but soft, like a faded memory. Eakins was deeply invested in realism, but there's something dreamlike here too, a sense of timelessness, or suspended time. I’m drawn to the way the light filters through the leaves, creating a dappled effect on the ground and on her dress. Look at her pose, the way she holds her hands. It’s casual, but also studied. It makes you wonder what she’s thinking, what’s going on in her world. Like Manet, Eakins blurs the boundaries between observation and imagination, inviting us to project our own thoughts and feelings onto the scene. It's the work of an artist trying to capture something fleeting, something real, but also something deeply personal.