cavetocanvas: Thomas Eakins, Walt Whitman, c. 1887 From the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: In this sketch for a larger painting, Eakins depicted one of America’s most influential poets. During the Civil War, Whitman volunteered as a nurse among the wounded. He described one improvised hospital ward in the Patent Office building in Washington D. C. as “a curious scene, especially at night when lit up. The glass cases, the beds, the forms lying there, the gallery above, and the marble pavements underfoot-the suffering, and the fortitude to bear it in varying degrees-occasionally, from some, the groan that could not be repress’d-sometimes a poor fellow dying, with emaciated face and glassy eye, the nurse by his side, the doctor also there, but no friend, no relative.”

cavetocanvas:

Thomas Eakins, Walt Whitman, c. 1887

From the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston:

In this sketch for a larger painting, Eakins depicted one of America’s most influential poets. During the Civil War, Whitman volunteered as a nurse among the wounded. He described one improvised hospital ward in the Patent Office building in Washington D. C. as “a curious scene, especially at night when lit up. The glass cases, the beds, the forms lying there, the gallery above, and the marble pavements underfoot-the suffering, and the fortitude to bear it in varying degrees-occasionally, from some, the groan that could not be repress’d-sometimes a poor fellow dying, with emaciated face and glassy eye, the nurse by his side, the doctor also there, but no friend, no relative.”