'Consummatum est ...': A Reassessment of Thomas Eakins's Crucifixion of 1880

When Thomas Eakins first exhibited his Crucifixion in 1882, critics condemned the painting's startling realism as wholly inappropriate to the sacred subject. But Eakins obviously considered the painting to be important and persisted in sending it to public exhibitions throughout the United States until his death in 1916. Since then, Eakins's biographers have treated the painting as an anomaly. Echoing comments of the nineteenth-century popular press, they have dismissed it as an objective study with no religious connotation. But, in fact, Eakins's Crucifixion is an informed adaptation of important European sources. It was with The Crucifixion, his largest narrative canvas, that Eakins proved his ability to produce a major history painting in the European tradition, specifically the academic French tradition in which he had trained for three years. This painting is the nexus of Eakins's oeuvre, the "reception piece" with which he demonstrated a mature academician's high level of technical expertise and sophisticated understanding of literary and artistic sources.