The Way They Live
1879
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
24 x 17 in. (61 x 43.2 cm)
Classification
Painting
Culture
American
Department
The American Wing
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Morris K. Jesup Fund, 1940
Accession Number
40.40
Tags
Art Historical Context
Thomas Anshutz's *The Way They Live*1879), an oil on canvas measuring 24 x 17 inches, captures a poignant slice of everyday American life in the late 19th. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's American Wing and acquired through the Morris K. Jesup Fund in 1940, this work reflects the realist tendencies of Anshutz, a Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts painter influenced by his teacher Thomas Eakins Anshutz favored unidealized scenes of ordinary people, using oil's rich textures to convey depth and natural light with meticulous brushwork. The painting depicts boys, girls, and women eng...