preview

Two Ordinary Gentlemen Playing Baseball By Thomas Eakins

Decent Essays

Thomas Eakins is a realist, he sees the world for how it is. This painting depicts two ordinary gentlemen playing baseball, the subject matter is represented truthfully and is not exaggerated, there are no supernatural elements represented in the painting. This delineation of a bourgeois commoner is Thomas Eakins way of displaying reality, this is how the traditional person would spend their day, no exaggerations are needed to make the subject matter of the painting interesting. The characters portrayed have normal proportions and with ordinary hues that complement the surroundings. Thomas Eakins avoids typical artistic conventions that are used to create aesthetic value. Examples of such conventions Thomas Eakins avoided are symmetry, sfumato, and closed composition. It is extraordinary in the verisimilitude shown in the painting, creating an illusion that the painting is reality. …show more content…

Contouring the baseball players white jerseys draped in dark shadows, blue socks and belts. Behind the ballgame lies the dark bleachers of the sunlit stadium. The pitch like the rest of the painting is watercolour but the way that Thomas Eakins created the texture seen in the pitch is by wash layering the same tone of green repeatedly over the same piece of canvas. Even the way the painting fades off into oblivion is exceptional, the paint becomes less intense as it nears the edge and eventually washes off completely leaving a blank canvas. The painting is so lifelike but the edges remind you how this isn’t reality, it's a refreshing way to bound a painting to a canvas. You also get to see the layering at the edge of the painting when it unfolds, reality blurring in and

Get Access