TitleThe Artist in His Studio
Date1873
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 24 1/8 × 19 3/4 in.
SignedSigned at lower left, on a roll of paper: "Wyatt Eaton/ 1873"
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY, Gift of John Elderkin, 1902
Object number406-P
Label TextIn the fall of 1872, Charles Wyatt Eaton traveled to Paris and entered the École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied with Jean-Léon Gérôme. He later explained that he "sought from the artist [an] absolute reality in the drawing of the human body (that) I could find in no other master." During the early part of his stay in Paris, Eaton discovered the work of Jean-François Millet. His admiration for Millet's scenes of peasant life motivated him to spend the summer of 1873 in Millet's home village of Barbizon. Over the course of the summer the artists became friends, and Eaton learned firsthand that Millet, like Gérôme, was a vigorous proponent of academic procedure. Indeed, Millet's technical criticisms of his work were virtually identical with those of his teacher. Millet, who had himself attended the École, urged Eaton to complete his course of study, and, heeding the call, he returned to Paris in the early autumn of 1873.
"The Artist in His Studio" was completed shortly after Eaton's return to Paris. In this work he pictures himself gazing longingly at a painting upon his easel of a young woman standing amidst a field of flowers. Pinned to the wall behind the artist is one of the academic figure studies that he may have executed while attending the École. The artist alludes to his recent concerns with academic study and painting the figure outdoors in the French countryside, and possibly to a romantic entanglement with the woman who served as his model, or, more appropriately, his muse.
Collections
- 19th Century Highlights from the Collection
