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Swimming

Thomas Eakins

Swimming

1885

Painted by the American realist master Thomas Eakins in 1885, 'Swimming' depicts six nude men on and around a rocky outcrop at a reservoir outside Philadelphia — students from Eakins's own circle at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Posed in sunlit classical attitudes (one diving, one standing, others reclining) with Eakins himself swimming in the water at the lower right as a self-portrait, the picture is the most important American painting about the male body in outdoor light of the 19th century. It is a centrepiece of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Swimming — Thomas Eakins | Museum Map