The Pianist 1896

Thomas Eakins painted this portrait of a man, simply titled ‘The Pianist’, sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. Eakins was part of a generation of American artists committed to Realism, an approach that sought to depict subjects accurately, without artificiality, and to focus on everyday life. Yet this is far from a straightforward depiction of a musician. Eakins belonged to a milieu that placed great emphasis on male artistic genius and in his time, the idea of the ‘artist’ was a powerful one. The ascot and jacket were part of a Bohemian aesthetic and Eakins’ subject could be read as part of the wider Romantic myth of the artist, in which a sensitive soul engages in creative work. To unpack this image further, we could look at the networks of musicians that Eakins frequented, the aesthetic theories circulating at the time and the broader politics of art education. Art always reflects the social context in which it's made.