Curator Jonathan Katz considers Thomas Eakins' Salutat one of the masterpieces of American painting. He told me he was particularly thrilled to be able to include it in Hide/Seek. So, unless you spend a lot of time hanging with the preppies at Andover, you haven't seen Salutat in person; this is your chance.
Salutat by Thomas Eakins, 1898
"...Yet Easkins turns Gilded Age conventions of the male gaze on their head. By making the object of desire an undraped male instead of a nude female, Eakins resisted social norms. He furthered his deviation from convention by having his boxer not box, thus stripping away the sole acceptable rationale for contemplating a nearly naked male form. The crowd is not admiring the boxer's jab, but his body, especially his buttocks. The boxer is also hardly a paragon of masculine power: he was a featherweight twenty-two year-old working-class lad named Billy Smith, who became much admired in Eakins' circle for his continuing devotion to the painter."
My parents toured the Hide/Seek exhibit in DC this week and loved it. If they can make time to go, so can you. And if you can't, then get the catalog.
I love it when academics get things basically wrong:
"The crowd is not admiring the boxer's jab, but his body, especially his buttocks."
It is the viewer of the painting who sees the boxer's buttocks, which like the rest of his backside are exquisitely lit for our delectation; the "crowd" is in front of him, no doubt "admiring" his basket. Perhaps the youth will twirl and show the rest of himself to the crowd, but in the painting as it is, nope.
I must say, those conservative Victorians exposed a lot of their boxers' flesh! Even we supposedly more sophisticated 21st Century types don't have our boxers enter the ring with their ass cheeks hanging out.
Posted by: Duncan | November 13, 2010 at 07:38 AM
LACMA had a recent exhibit of Eakins' sports paintings and Salutat was included. Glorious work. But I had never been in a gallery that was so noisy with people talking in conversational tones, including some of the guards. I think they were unnerved by so much male flesh.
Posted by: djork | November 13, 2010 at 08:51 AM
@Duncan: Isn't it possible that the viewers vantage point is shared by more of the audience? Most boxing rings I've seen have seating on four sides.
I saw the exhibit this weekend: superb, inspiring, and beautiful.
Posted by: Trae | November 15, 2010 at 08:18 AM