The debate is raging over the legacy of Philadelphia artist Thomas Eakins. “Was he a heroic figure, a paragon of artistic integrity whose paintings of oarsmen, swimmers, family members and the distinguished citizens of Philadelphia expressed America’s emerging power in the 19th century? Or was he, as the art historian Henry Adams depicts him in a new biography, a tormented soul, afraid of going insane like his mother, sexually ambivalent, a bully, an exhibitionist, a voyeur who was possibly guilty of bestiality and of incest with female relatives?” That’s a wide interpretive gap, and scholars throughout the art world are lining up to argue the case. But the truth is likely somewhere in between…