Postcard Story – The Champion Single Sculls (Max Schmitt in a Single Scull) – Thomas Eakins -1871 – The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Oldest Grandson – 12/30/25
He, the champion was clearly center – in the finished painting he now beheld – the focal point, as the painter had said where he would be placed, telling him he would be the subject, the largest presence, him, the champion. Other dreaming contenders for his rowing title here and there upon the water, a mirror that reflected this portrait of triumph, his triumph … though the water strangely still and clear…
For rowing – in the real world of oars powerfully muscled through the waters of the river – always broke the surface calm, the shock of the oars upon the water creating an ever-widening turbulence, upon and within the flow of the river, and within the lives of all those whose hands touched and raced upon the water, including his own.
And the scull in the painting nearest him, pulling away, powered by the just warming strength of a man … a youth compared to him … painted more sure, younger … more powerful and alive … made handsome by the touch of paint and imagination, fair youth leaving and moving away from him, the champion … from his age, from a … weakness, a tiredness and doldrum, the artist seemed to portray upon his face.
And the face of the youth … joyful and strong, confidently rowing away from … an aging champion, painted glancing at the artist with … mistrust and … resentment… his face upon the mirror of the water – part of his promised centering – already made indistinct and vague…
The painter … he was sure … now creating a different reflection … deeper, the champion’s own thoughts… Sullen and glowering, his face now wondering out loud for all to see, if the painted youth was … a clever gimmick, an artistic deceit, a hint, declaring to all eyes open and observant, that the image of what was pulling away, had already left him, the champion…
For perhaps the image of youth leaving, was what the artist thought was happening to him now … or had happened … in the course of time … in the course of his time… And now, within? Deepening resentment … spreading anger …
For when he was posed in his scull upon the water, the painter said he wanted above all a “natural scene”, as he wanted to record what was truly there. And the champion had thought this odd for an artist known for taking photos of his subjects … but perhaps … yes, imperative for a champion subject. He had smiled.
But now, as he continued to gaze at the painting … he remembered that for a moment as he posed, he had lowered his eyes to the water and saw his own image, blurred and broken and fragmented within a thousand agitated ripples – in the sunlight, like the countless shards of a shattered mirror, vainly reflecting light, seeking to create a wholeness, an equilibrium, to focus his face, his eyes … his soul…
And it was a wholeness looking for a balance, a calming that never came … yes … that was never there to begin with. For within the time of his gazing, the endless ripples and eddies surfaced all around – the effects of the oars of others, the soft paddling of the ducks, the third-rate pleasure boats, the breath of the wind upon the river, all the natural turbulence of … time…
And as his eyes, dead now without triumph, continued to aimlessly wander upon the painting, the champion slowly understood that this was in truth what the painter had come to see and understand and center him within. For what his champion eyes had seen upon the water where he was posed, was truly there, the reality … of all the artist beheld, and carefully moved his brush to record, was now beheld by many … as an artistic masterpiece…
For at times as he had posed, as he sat, in his scull, he had observed the artist and he had wondered … no, had sensed, that the painter was beholding him with … mocking … or judging … or perhaps worst of all, pity. But the up-and-coming artist had said…
And in the painting, farther off in the distance, another scull, this one now approaching, he remembers it, yes … perhaps intimating of what was to come … surely and steadily … for … perhaps in time … in the mind of that youth, or another, there would be no thought of him, the Champion, no thought or knowledge at all. But then … surely that youth on the river that morning had had thoughts of him…
His eyes, now motionless, blankly stared upon the world of the painting, the world of where he was the center, now deeply seeing … no … knowing … that what he sees … what he sees of himself … is what all others in time will see, when viewing the painting, hung in an art gallery, or a museum, or in the tastefully appointed gilded room of an New York Fifth Ave. mansion, declaring to the socially “acceptable” invitees, not his victory past, but the owner’s amassed wealth and acquired social standing, but not him.
For from the image of him on canvas … the chosen invitees will not feel pity for him. For unlike the artist … they will have no knowledge or thought of him … for all they will see within the gilded room, is a hoped for but imagery mirror, in which they wish their soul to be reflected within. And … sadly, they will not see themselves reflected on the face, or in the eyes, of this once upon a time champ, for they will not see him as he was, and how he knows now himself to be…
And now – many years later – at times, as he slows then stops to rest in his occasional rowing upon the river, he quietly reflects again upon his image in the water. For now, he truly understands, that … even the tiny insignificant waves from his own dipping and pulling of his oars, the activity of his own muscles and decreasing might, always arrive alongside and join the ripples and eddies originating from all around, marring and eventually disfiguring from recognition, the now weary image of this Champion, erasing all, except the inner anger and resentment, that once permanently lodged within, but now only rarely and very briefly haunt his fragments.
For the memory of his visage that he, as the Champion, clearly saw shattered and dissipated, when once gazing down upon calm then agitated waters, eventually within him, spawned deeply worming threats of inner and outer diminishment, resentments, and fears, and seething rage … a poisonous death of life … is now, with his gentler and wiser ageing eyes, understood more fully, and seen with greater clarity, merely as the river, just as life, ever flowing, always moving on … as it always has … and always will …
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