May 8: Rodin and Philadelphia Art Museums

2023-05-08 172188 Portrait of Dr Hayes Agnew (The Agnew Clinic), 1889; Thomas Eakins, Philadelphia Museum of Art

Fourteen years after painting the controversial "Gross Clinic," Eakins was asked to celebrate another great teaching surgeon, the retiring Dr. D. Hayes Agnew of the University of Pennsylvania, Like Gross, Agnew pauses in the midst of surgery, edxplaining to his students the mastectomy he has just concluded. Once again, a portrait of the artist appears at the far right edge of the canvas - this time painted by his wife, Susan Macdowell Eakins.
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But everything else is different. Revisiting a subject that earned him a reputation as a ruthless realist, Eakins reconsidered every aspect of "The Gross Clinic." He turned the canvas sideways, dividing the principal surgeon and his clinic and drawing the audience of students forward as participants. Modern artificial lighting makes the setting much brighter and warmer than "The Gross Clinic," with its dramatic skylight effect. Another recent development, the sterile, white surgical coat, replaces the street clothing worn by earlier generations.
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The fearful "mother" in "The Gross Clinic" is replaced by a professional woman on the surgical team: Mary Clymer, one of the first graduates of Penn's new school of nursing. The patient is more legible - and provocatively exposed - but now the operation itself is hidden and the blood reduced. At Dr. Agnew's insistence, the bloodied hand and scalpel seen in "The Gross Clinic" are washed clean. Even so, the grim story of breast cancer, involving a far more drastic and perilous surgery than depicted in "The Gross Clinic," adds a new level of emotion to his work.
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The audience of medical students seen here commissioned Eakins to make the painting and modeled for the artist in his studio. Their voices emerge in the Latin inscription on the frame Eakins designed, which translates: "Most experienced surgeon, the clearest writer and teacher, the most venerated and beloved man."
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"The Agnew Clinic" was immediately treasured by the medical school, but public response was cool until the painting was exhimited along with "The Gross Clinic" at the Chicago World's Columbian Exhbition in1893. The medal Eakins received in Chicago recognizing his artistic achievements marked a turning point in his career.