Man Made: Thomas Eakins and the Construction of Gilded Age Manhood (Men and Masculinity)
"Berger's original readings provide altogether new and compelling ways to understand some of Eakins's most well-known paintings."—Alexander Nemerov, Stanford University"This book is most interesting. Berger rereads a number of Eakins's paintings and makes use of recent investigations about the meaning of manhood in the nineteenth century.Man Madecasts much of Eakins's life and work into new light."—Elizabeth Johns, author ofThomas Eakins: The Heroism of Modern Life"During the last decade, Martin Berger has been the most perceptive and sophisticated critic of masculinity in nineteenth-century American art. With this book he consolidates that analysis triumphantly--and extends its implications, first into a consideration of all of Eakins's oeuvre, and then into related discourses of sexuality, domesticity, and race.Man Madehas useful things to say to scholars in all fields of American culture. In addition, it now becomes the most interesting book on Eakins since Elizabeth Johns's groundbreaking work,Thomas Eakins: The Heroism of Modern Life,first published nearly twenty years ago."—Bruce Robertson, University of California, Santa Barbara