U.S. ALBUM/Thomas Eakins

FOR the past half century, the U.S. has taken more and more seriously the cult of youthfulness. Walt Whitman, the 19th century's great poet, was too realistic for any cult, best celebrated old age in this breath-taking line:

Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe.

This month the Baltimore Museum of Art will celebrate its 25th year with a big loan show devoted to paintings of and by the aged. Among its masterpieces will be Thomas Eakins' portrait of Walt Whitman (opposite), painted when the poet was 68.

"Eakins," Whitman once opined, "is not a painter, he is a force." To criticisms of Eakins' portrayal, Whitman retorted: "It is likely to be only the unusual person who can enjoy such a picture—only here and there one who can weigh and measure it according to its own philosophy. Eakins would not be appreciated by ... professional elects: the people who like Eakins best are the people who have no art prejudices to interpose."

Whitman's appraisal of Eakins still stands. Next to Winslow Homer, Eakins (1844-1916) is the finest painter America has produced, and is still sneered at by some "professional elects." Eakins made art the servant of honesty; he chose showing over showiness, and thereby earned the lasting admiration of men who, like Whitman, place the true even higher than they do the beautiful.