Jacques Villeneuve with no front wing
F1 > Monaco GP, 2005-05-22 (Monte Carlo): Sunday race

Villeneuve admits Monaco move was misjudged
Racing series F1

Date 2005-05-24
By Nikki Reynolds – Motorsport.com

Unsurprisingly, Peter Sauber was not terribly impressed by the move that Jacques Villenueve tried on teammate Felipe Massa in the Monaco Grand Prix, which resulted in Massa being forced off the track and Villeneuve hitting the barrier. The Canadian dived up the inside at Ste Devote but rather misjudged it and wasted the chance of both cars being in the points.
Massa was running eighth at the time and Villeneuve ninth; a few laps later the Renault of Giancarlo Fisichella and the Toyota of Jarno Trulli both had problems that dropped them to 10th and 12th. Therefore, if not for the altercation at Ste Devote, Massa and Villeneuve could have been comfortably in the points. They finished ninth and 11th respecitvely.
Sauber said it was a “very serious situation” and has summoned both drivers to team headquarters in Hinwil to explain what happened. However it would seem that Sauber already knows who was at fault, as after the race he referred to “the incident caused by Jacques”. Villeneuve himself admitted it was not a great move.
“15 laps from the finish, I tried to pass Felipe, my team-mate, as he was struggling with a pair of damaged rear tyres,” he told his website. “Unfortunately, my manoeuvre was misjudged and it resulted in forcing Felipe to run wide to avoid my car. I also damaged my front wing and I had to stop for a second time to change the nose of my car.”
“This is something I could have avoided of course, but at this point I thought that I had to take that risk as we were in good shape to bring some valuable points to the team. I did not want to let Fisichella to get away but I tried something that unfortunately didn’t work.”
Massa kept his cool and said he was not angry with Villeneuve, only angry about the tyre wear. Jacques spoke to the Brazilian afterwards: “I went to see Felipe after the race and explained what happened,” he added. “He completely understood and confirmed to me that his tyres could not hold the same pace as mine at this point.”
Whether Sauber will hand out any kind of punishment depends on what the drivers have to say to him. However, the situation has once again put the spotlight on Villeneuve and his position within the team. After a rocky start to the season things improved at Imola, where the Canadian scored points, but now he’s back in a tricky spot again.

Kimi Raikkonen
F1 > Monaco GP, 2005-05-21 (Monte Carlo): Saturday practice 1

Christijan Albers
F1 > Monaco GP, 2005-05-19 (Monte Carlo): Thursday practice 1

Fernando Alonso
F1 > Monaco GP, 2005-05-21 (Monte Carlo): Saturday practice 2

Giancarlo Fisichella
F1 > Monaco GP, 2005-05-21 (Monte Carlo): Saturday practice

Vitantonio Liuzzi
F1 > Monaco GP, 2005-05-19 (Monte Carlo): Thursday practice 1

Jarno Trulli
F1 > Monaco GP, 2005-05-21 (Monte Carlo): Saturday practice

Mark Webber
F1 > Monaco GP, 2005-05-19 (Monte Carlo): Thursday practice

Podium: race winner Kimi Raikkonen with Nick Heidfeld and Mark Webber
F1 > Monaco GP, 2005-05-22 (Monte Carlo): Sunday race
Raikkonen wins entertaining Monaco GP
Racing series F1

Date 2005-05-22 (Monaco)
By Nikki Reynolds – Motorsport.com

Kimi Raikkonen took his second consecutive win of the season at the Monaco Grand Prix, the McLaren man leading from pole to flag and too far ahead of the rest to be troubled. Williams had a grand time to see Nick Heidfeld and Mark Webber come home second and third respectively, Heidfeld’s best result to date and Webber’s first F1 podium finish.
It was a clean start, with pole sitter Raikkonen beating Renault’s Fernando Alonso to the first corner to hold on to the lead. Webber lost out, dropping to fifth, while the second Renault of Giancarlo Fisichella moved up to third. Further down the grid, Felipe Massa got a good start to beat Sauber teammate Jacques Villeneuve and the Ferrari of Rubens Barrichello to take ninth.
By the end of lap two, Juan Pablo Montoya, who started at the back, had got his McLaren up to 12th. The top three started pulling away, Raikkonen and Alonso trading fastest laps but Kimi was widening the gap between them. Toyota’s Ralf Schumacher, who was also a back-starter, had moved up behind the Red Bull of Tonio Liuzzi just outside the top ten.
The opening stages were fairly static and Jordan’s Narain Karthikeyan was the first to have a troublesome time. He dived into the pits early after contact with the barriers — he was then in and out of the pits in rapid succession with various problems before finally giving up and retiring with damaged hydraulics.
At the front Alonso was quicker than Raikkonen in the first sector but Raikkonen was making it up in the later stages of the lap. Ralf was still stuck behind Liuzzi and Montoya behind Barrichello but then an incident occurred that changed the whole outlook of the race.
Christijan Albers’ Minardi spun at Mirabeau and came to halt across the track. David Coulthard’s Red Bull was first to arrive at the scene and could have perhaps avoided it but he was hit from behind by the Ferrari of Michael Schumacher. The pair of Saubers arrived, followed by Montoya and there was a bit of a traffic jam.
Massa, Villeneueve and Montoya all managed to escape unscathed but Coulthard was forced to retire with a broken rear wing and diffuser damage. Michael also had to pit for a new nose cone and the safety car was deployed while the Minardi was cleared, although Albers did manage to rejoin the race.
“It was unfortunate but that’s racing, especially at Monaco,” said Coulthard. “I could see what had happened but Michael behind me obviously couldn’t and hit the back of me, breaking my rear suspension. It’s very disappointing.”
The two-stoppers headed into the pits while the safety car was out and it was rather confusing when the race restarted to figure out who was doing what. The order was Raikkonen and Toyota’s Jarno Trulli, who both hadn’t stopped, from Alonso, who had, then Webber, Heidfeld and Massa, who had stopped, and Villenevue, who hadn’t.
However, on track it was all muddled up as Barrichello and a few others who were one-stopping were scattered amongst the actual race order. The whole confusion was good for Raikkonen, who sped off at the front and bad for Alonso, who was stuck behind Trulli and being caught by the pair of Williams drivers.
Fisichella lost out as he had to wait in the pit lane as Alonso took his stop and the Italian dropped to eighth. More Minardi trouble followed when Patrick Friesacher lost it coming out of the tunnel and spun, hitting the barrier but coming to a halt relatively unscathed.
Raikkonen was lapping nearly three seconds quicker than Alonso but the question remained as to whether the Spaniard was on a two-stopper or not. He had a very long way to go if he was not pitting again and his tyres already seemed to be giving him trouble. Webber and Heidfeld were right behind the Renault and it was all getting a bit heated.
Raikkonen and Michael, who was outside the top ten, were trading fastest laps and Kimi finally took his one stop around lap forty, with enough of an advantage to easily rejoin in the lead. After the top five, Fisichella, who had got himself up to sixth, had a train of Barrichello, Montoya and Liuzzi all getting impatient behind him until they took their stops.
Montoya jumped ahead of Barrichello in the stop, then Barrichello got a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Massa was the first of the two-stoppers to go in again, quite early, but he rejoined still in the points in seventh. Ralf and Michael were stuck behind Villenevue at the edge of the top ten.
Webber was now really pressuring Alonso and had a look at the Renault but decided against it. Michael did likewise to Ralf at the same place but ended up skipping the chicane instead. Heidfeld came in for his second stop and Webber was so held up by Alonso that Nick rejoined in front of his teammate.
Liuzzi’s tyres were failing, which caused him to hit the barriers and he retired to the pits. Behind Fisichella patience was starting to fray; Montoya was all over the back of Trulli, having got past Massa, and Villeneuve was harassing Felipe.
Villeneuve made a decidedly rash move at Ste Devote and went in far too deep, forcing Massa off the track. Villeneuve hit the barrier, although Massa managed to avoid any contact and keep going but it ruined both their races, knocking them outside the points.
“I just did my job,” Massa commented afterwards, saying he was not angry although he didn’t look too happy. “The tyres were a problem and he (Villeneuve) tried at the wrong moment. He could have waited because he must have seen my tyres were bad. It was not fantastic.”
The next bit of action was Trulli having a go at Fisichella at the inside of the Loews hairpin and getting past the Renault. Not only did he get past but so did Montoya, Ralf and both Ferraris. Who says you can’t overtake at Monaco? Fisichella, struggling with his tyres, dropped all the way from fifth to 10th in just a couple of corners.
Trulli got out of shape at the chicane and the Toyota mechanics were going bonkers. He had seemingly sustained some damage at the hairpin and had to pit for check over but there was no apparent problem. Meanwhile, Alonso was still only just holding off Heidfeld and Webber — but not for long.
Heidfeld had a look at the chicane, while Barrichello had a look at Ralf at the same place, but they all held station. Next time around Heidfeld just flew past Alonso into the chicane and made it look easy, to take second place. Struggling with the tyres, Alonso then had Webber to contend with.
Same place next time around Webber pulled exactly the same stunt as Heidfeld but didn’t make quite such a tidy job of it. Alonso skipped the chicane and stayed in front, which surely looked like he would have to cede the position. But he didn’t.
Another lap around and Webber again charged at the chicane but this time he was the one that skipped it! Would he have to cede a position to Alonso, who surely already had to cede to the Williams? Who knows, but Webber got the better of the altercation and went into third.
Up front, Raikkonen was sailing serenely on his way to the chequered flag and his second win of the season. A fine drive by Kimi, who was just far too quick for anyone to even get near. Hedifeld and Webber deservedly took second and third, a great result for Williams.
“It is of course a special race,” said Raikkonen. “A few years ago I got so close but I couldn’t get past Montoya at that time but now finally it happened so I am very happy. It is just the same, you get ten points from this race, but this is a special place and everyone looks in a slightly different way when you win in Monaco. For sure, we will have a good party tonight.”
Heidfeld was naturally very happy with his best result so far: “It feels fantastic, it is the best result I have ever had in Formula One and it makes it even more special that it is here in Monaco,” he grinned. “It is one of my favourite circuits, one of the most difficult circuits in the world, so it is very nice.”
Webber was not too pleased about yet another poor start. “Both of us on the podium is a fantastic effort for BMW and Williams, considering the start of the season hasn’t been easy,” he said. “The start was a joke, it was very frustrating that I didn’t get away at all, the clutch didn’t really work at all, so that was a shame.”
At the end Montoya was catching Alonso at a rate of four seconds a lap. Behind him Barrichello was all over Ralf and Michael was right with them. Somewhere unseen Michael got past Barrichello and Alonso crossed the line for fourth with Montoya on his rear wing and the other three right behind.
It had been a fairly sedate race until Albers’ incident bought out the safety car and then it turned into a real battle all the way, which was much more exciting than one would usually expect from Monaco. Raikkonen, the Williams pair, Ralf and Montoya all did very good jobs, while Alonso did his best to control the damage.
The result didn’t have a huge impact on the drivers’ standings — Alonso still leads with an advantage of 22 points over Raikkonen, who has moved up to second by one point over Trulli. From Webber in fourth to Coulthard in tenth there’s 10 points separating them.
However, McLaren gained in the constructors’ standings and is second to Renault, the gap just 12 points. If Montoya hadn’t been demoted to the back it probably would have been even closer. Williams stays fourth behind Toyota but closed the gap to eight points.
It was the first race that Red Bull didn’t score any points and Ferrari’s three didn’t improve its position but at least it was something. Sauber was the biggest loser as Villeneuve’s random lunge on teammate Massa put them both out of the points. Massa finished ninth and Villeneuve 11th.
Trulli and Fisichella disappeared to 10th and 12th, while Jordan and Minardi got one car home apiece, Tiago Monteiro 13th and Albers 14th.
There’s only one week until the European Grand Prix at the Nürburgring and we can expect the battle to be rejoined just a fiercely. BAR will be back in action and the championship is still wide open. Final top eight classification: Raikkonen, Heidfeld, Webber, Alonso, Montoya, R. Schumacher, M. Schumacher, Barrichello

Ali Abbas/European Pressphoto Agency

Iraqis removed the body of a victim.

May 24, 2005
Car Bombings in Iraq Kill 33, With Shiites as Targets
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and SABRINA TAVERNISE

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 23 – Insurgents carried out three major car bomb attacks against Iraqi Shiites on Monday, killing at least 33 and wounding 120 in what appeared to be the latest in a wave of violence intended to exploit the sectarian divisions that have tormented the country.

All told, attacks across Iraq killed at least 43 people, including Waiel al-Rubaie, a senior aide in Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s administration, and his driver, who were shot to death in the Mansour district of Baghdad. The American military said three American soldiers were also killed in the northern city of Mosul on Sunday.

Insurgents have long sought to play on the deeply ingrained fears and prejudices between Sunni Arabs, a minority that once ruled the country, and the Shiites and Kurds who now dominate the government.

In Baghdad on Monday, a Shiite and a Kurd were expected to be appointed to the committee drafting the new constitution, The Associated Press reported. Members of the National Assembly chose a Shiite cleric, Hummam Hammoudi, to lead the committee. His deputy is expected to be Fouad Massoum, a Kurd.

Political leaders fear that the insurgents have intensified their campaign to drive a wedge between Sunnis and Shiites and that they are trying to ignite a civil war.

Last month, Shiite leaders accused Sunnis of a mass killing of Shiites in Madaen, south of Baghdad, and Sunni leaders have accused the largest Shiite militia force of complicity in the killing of Sunni clerics.

The accusations have alarmed even Iraqi religious leaders known for militancy. On Sunday, the rebel Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr vowed to work for a “peaceful” fix to sectarian strife, and a leading Sunni party that claims ties to the insurgency, the Iraqi Islamic Party, issued a statement on Monday condemning “terrorist works” in Madaen and other Shiite areas.

The deadliest attack on Monday struck a Shiite neighborhood in the northern city of Tal Afar near the Syrian border. A pair of suicide car bombers tried to kill a community leader, a Shiite with close ties to Kurdish leaders, but they instead killed at least 15 people and wounded 20 others, Khasro Goran, the deputy governor of Nineveh Province, said in a telephone interview.

Earlier on Monday, a car bomb exploded outside a popular and crowded restaurant near the mostly Shiite Sadr City district in Baghdad, killing at least 8 people and wounding 89 at the end of a busy lunch hour.

On Monday evening, a car bomb exploded outside a Shiite mosque in Mahmudiya, a restive and dangerous town south of Baghdad, killing at least 10 and wounding 15 more. Many victims were children, an Interior Ministry official said.

Five people were also killed in Tuz Khurmatu, about 120 miles north of Baghdad, when insurgents attacked a convoy carrying members of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party that controls the eastern and southern reaches of the Kurdish territories, party officials said.

In the restive Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib, a Sunni enclave, American and Iraqi troops carried out their own offensive on Monday in an effort to bring to heel what has been a major trouble spot for American forces.

The operation, which began Sunday morning, is essentially an extensive search-and-arrest mission. About 2,200 Iraqi soldiers and police officers raided suspected car-bomb factories and insurgent hide-outs. About 1,500 American troops are assisting by cordoning off the area to be raided and then providing backup.

American military officials described the effort as the first time that Iraqis have led an operation of this scale. Iraqi officers provided the information for the raids, which resulted in the capture of what the military said were 366 suspected insurgents by Sunday evening, including six from Syria, Egypt and Yemen, said Maj. Webster M. Wright, a spokesman for the Second Brigade of the Army’s 10th Mountain Division.

“One of the purposes is to stop the rash of car bombs,” Major Wright said. He said that no Americans had been killed in the operation and that one Iraqi soldier had died. Two insurgents are believed to have been killed, he said.

Other American soldiers arrested 15 terrorism suspects and seized $6 million during early morning raids on Sunday throughout central Baghdad, the military said.

The bombing near Sadr City demolished the Habayibna restaurant and much of the apartment building above it, and ignited at least a dozen cars parked nearby. An Iraqi reporter for The New York Times who was about 50 yards away when the bomb detonated said that after the blast friends and relatives of people at the restaurant rushed to the scene amid the screams of pain from victims inside. Policemen arrived quickly, fired pistols into the air and warned people to get away for fear that another bomb could go off.

Zuheir Rajab, a 26-year-old engineer at a cellphone company, said he and his roommate, Ahmad, were in their apartment nearby when they heard the deafening blast. “It was really fast and all we managed to do was protect our faces with our hands from glass shards from the window,” Mr. Rajab said at Al Kindi hospital.

The force of the explosion wrecked their apartment. “I searched for Ahmad and found him under some wreckage,” he said, holding his roommate, both their shirts stained with blood. “Our neighbor came and took us to the hospital.”

Warzer Jaff and Layla Isitfan contributed reporting for this article.

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Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Harry Reid, left, the Democratic leader, and Bill Frist, the Republican leader, after the filibuster agreement was reached on Monday night

May 24, 2005
Bipartisan Group in Senate Averts Judge Showdown
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, May 23 – A bipartisan group of 14 senators struck a last-second agreement on Monday that defused – at least for now – a potentially explosive parliamentary showdown over eliminating Senate filibusters against judicial nominees.

Under a compromise reached by an assortment of moderates, mavericks and senior statesmen just as the Senate was headed into its climactic overnight debate over the filibuster, three previously blocked appeals court nominees, Janice Rogers Brown, William Pryor and Priscilla R. Owen – will get floor votes. No commitment was made on the fate of two others, William Myers and Henry Saad.

In addition, the seven Democrats in the deal said they were committed to filibuster future judicial nominees only under “extraordinary” circumstances, while their Republican counterparts promised to support no changes in Senate rules that would alter the filibuster rule, effectively denying the 50 votes it would take to enact such a rules change.

Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who was a chief architect of the deal, said the negotiators were motivated by a mutual desire to prevent lasting damage to the Senate from a rules change, and he said the pact was crafted in the “finest traditions of the Senate.”

Senator Robert C. Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat who had fought the rules change as an abuse of Senate traditions, said, “We have kept the Republic.”

And Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, declared, “In a Senate that’s become increasingly partisanized and polarized, the bipartisan center held.”

The judicial showdown that has preoccupied the Senate for weeks in dispute was to many a foreshadowing of what might occur later this year, if there is a Supreme Court vacancy. There were varying interpretations of how Monday night’s agreement might restrict lawmakers during what is anticipated to be a drawn-out battle.

On the one hand, Democrats view the pact as containing an understanding that would forbid the Republicans to try to vanquish the filibuster in such an instance, while Republicans asserted last night that they could still move to change the rules if Democrats violated the agreement.

The Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, who had vowed to invoke what some have called the nuclear option to do away with judicial filibusters, said the agreement “has some good news, it has some disappointing news, and will require careful monitoring.”

Dr. Frist and his allies portrayed the agreement as a positive step but noted that it still did not fully meet their requirement that all judicial nominees ultimately receive up-or-down votes.

“This agreement announced tonight falls short of that principle,” Dr. Frist said.

He also warned that he would monitor the agreement carefully and indicated that “bad faith and bad behavior” would force him to bring the nuclear option back.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the No. 2 Republican, said, “The way I read it, all options are still available with the timing to be determined.”

As the Congressional leaders who had been unable to reach their own compromise sorted through the details, reactions were mixed.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said the pact had resolved the long-running fight. Clearly euphoric and relieved, Mr. Reid said a message had been sent that “abuse of power will not be tolerated, and attempts to trample the Constitution and grab absolute control are over.”

At the White House, Scott McClellan, the president’s spokesman, said the administration shared the Senate Republican view that the new understanding was a positive action but did not resolve the entire issue.

“Nominees that have been waiting for a long time for an up-or-down vote are now going to get one,” Mr. McClellan said. “That’s progress. We will continue working to push for an up-or-down vote on all our nominees.”

Leaders of interest groups that had been deeply involved in the fight, seeing it as a proxy battle for a future Supreme Court vacancy, were clearly unhappy with the deal.

“While we had no interest in seeing the Senate break down, we are very disappointed with the decision to move these extremist nominees one step closer to confirmation,” said Nan Aron, head of the Alliance for Justice, a liberal group.

Some conservative activists who had pushed for the Senate to ban the filibuster entirely said they had been betrayed by Republican moderates.

“Once again, moderate Republicans have taken the victory and thrown it overboard,” said Paul Weyrich, a veteran conservative organizer, who predicted that conservatives voters would punish the party.

Mr. McCain said he expected that interest groups on both the left and right would be furious at the compromise.

“Think of all the money they are going to lose,” he said, ducking into a car to head to the premiere of a film about his life, referring to the fund-raising operations that had sprung up around the judicial battle.

After thanking Mr. McCain on the Capitol steps for the “wonderful” deal, Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, acknowledged that Democrats had cleared the way for possible confirmation of three judges many in the party opposed. But Ms. Boxer said others had been held off, and she described the agreement as a “big victory” for Democrats.

Democratic officials said an unwritten aspect of the pact is that two nominees not named in the deal – Brett Kavanaugh and William J. Haynes – would not be confirmed and would be turned aside either at the committee level or on the floor.

The compromise was achieved as the Senate was digging in for a floor fight Tuesday that both sides said could have led to a substantial disruption in Senate business as Democrats retaliated for what they described as an abuse of power by the Republicans. Earlier in the day, Mr. Reid and other senior lawmakers were pessimistic that a deal could be achieved at the late stage after negotiations that had gone on for weeks with no result.

In the absence of an acceptable deal, Dr. Frist said Monday morning, the majority could no longer allow Democrats to prevent floor votes on President Bush’s choices for federal appeals courts.

“The moment draws closer when all 100 senators must decide a basic question of principle whether to restore the precedent of a fair up-or-down vote for judicial nominees on this floor or to enshrine a new tyranny of the minority into the Senate rules forever,” Dr. Frist said.

And Mr. Bush weighed in as well, saying the public wants nominees to eventually get a vote on the floor.

“I’ve been consistent with judicial philosophy in my picks as well as the character of the people I pick,” he told reporters. “And I expect them to get an up-or-down vote. That’s what I expect. And I think the American people expect that as well – people to have a fair hearing.”

Ten of about 45 appellate court nominees have been blocked by the parliamentary tactic, but the Senate is currently considering the stalled nomination of Justice Priscilla R. Owen of the Texas Supreme Court to a federal appeals court.

The import of the vote permeated the Senate atmosphere as lawmakers confronted a matter with significant consequences for the institution as well as the political careers of members of both parties. Democrats and Republicans rolled in cots for what could be an all-night session, though aides said they were uncertain any senators would be using them. And both Democrats and Republicans planned showings of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” the Jimmy Stewart film that represents filibusters in many Americans’ minds.

Throughout the day, senators from both parties gave detailed floor speeches laying out their competing positions on the issue.

Democrats attacked Republicans for what they described as a naked power grab in violation of the rules and traditions of the Senate.

“I implore senators to step back, step back, step back, step back from the precipice,” said Mr. Byrd as he delivered a lecture on Senate history, reminding Republicans pointedly of one aspect of that history. “Don’t forget that the worm turns,” he said.

Robin Toner contributed reporting for this article.

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Nicholas D. Kristof

Golden Gate Bridge

GENERAL VIEW, LOOKING NORTH, SHOWING THE ‘SEA SIDE’ OF THE STRUCTURE

Sotheby’s New York

“The Swimming Hole” by Eakins. “People always seemed to be avoiding the most obvious qualities in the paintings – that the people looked unhappy,” the art historian and biographer Henry Adams said, explaining his revisionist view of the painter.

May 21, 2005
Eakins the Tormented? A Biographer’s Dark View Ruffles the Field
By DINITIA SMITH
Who was 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?

“Eakins Revealed” (Oxford University Press), by Mr. Adams, a professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, is roiling art historians. One of those Mr. Adams criticizes is Elizabeth Johns, author of “Thomas Eakins: The Heroism of Modern Life” and an emeritus professor at the University of Pennsylvania, for “maintaining a hard-line defense of Eakins’s motives.” Ms. Johns said she had not read Mr. Adams’s book. But she added, “It seems to be a pathography.”

“Eakins is an artist and person entirely too complex to be reduced to his sexual dimensions,” she said.

However, Eakins’s major living biographer, William Innes Homer, author of “Thomas Eakins: His Life and Art,” has read the book and praised it as “extremely perceptive and bold and courageous.” Though he said: “It goes too far. It goes off into the wilderness when it comes to the ultimate interpretation of Eakins’s pictures.”

Mr. Adams has pulled together recent revisionist scholarship, some of it based on thousands of documents, along with nude photographs of the artist and other men. These pictures were taken by Eakins and saved by his student Charles Bregler, then rediscovered in the mid-1980′s. Mr. Adams has also examined unpublished notes by Eakins’s first biographer, Lloyd Goodrich, whose idealized Eakins influenced generations of scholars.

Mr. Adams, 56, has degrees from Harvard and Yale and is a descendant of the Adams presidential family. He is named for the writer Henry Adams (“The Education of Henry Adams” and “Mont Saint Michel and Chartres”) and wrote “Eakins Revealed” on his namesake’s Louis XIV-style desk.

“There was a way that Eakins’s life and key episodes in it were presented that seemed just not true,” Mr. Adams said in a telephone interview. “People always seemed to be avoiding the most obvious qualities in the paintings – that the people looked unhappy.” He pointed to Eakins’s portraits of his wife, Susan. In one, with a dog at her feet, Susan looks “emaciated and helpless and depressed,” he said. In another, “Mrs. Thomas Eakins,” she seems “sort of catatonic.”

In the famous work “The Swimming Hole,” Eakins presents “the sexy and attractive qualities of young men, at just the time when he is painting his wife as dejected and ugly,” Mr. Adams said. “Previous writers have most often imagined Eakins as a sexually potent figure, but he had deep sexual repressions.” For instance, in “The Swimming Hole,” Eakins paints himself in the water, not as “a participant but a voyeur.”

Mr. Adams tried to understand the roots of these ambiguities. For instance, he said, Eakins did not have an idyllic childhood, as has been said. His father, Benjamin, a writing master and slumlord, was severe. His mother, Caroline, was manic-depressive. Mr. Adams speculates that she was sexually inappropriate with Thomas.

Eakins (1844-1916) studied art in Paris. When he returned, in 1884, he married his student Susan Macdowell. He made her give up painting to care for him. “He sort of killed his wife as a personality,” Mr. Adams said. They had no children, and Mr. Adams said, “based on contemporary descriptions, their relationship was clearly not sexually passionate.” Later, they were rumored to live in a ménage à trois with Susan’s friend Addie Williams.

Mr. Adams examines the incident in 1886 when Eakins was asked to resign from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, supposedly for stripping a loincloth from a male model. Eakins has since been seen as a victim of proper Philadelphia society.

“But the entire teaching academy turned against him,” Mr. Adams said. He said the Bregler papers revealed that Eakins might have pressured students to undress, undressed in front of them himself and used foul language.

Shortly after Eakins resigned, Mr. Adams said, Eakins’s sister Caroline and her husband, Frank Stephens, campaigned to have him dismissed from the Philadelphia Sketch Club and the Philadelphia Art Club as well, accusing him of “bestiality,” though what that meant is unclear. They also accused him of incest with his favorite sister, Margaret, by then dead. Will Crowell, married to another sister, Frances, reported that Eakins walked around the house and in front of his sisters without his pants on.

The Crowells later accused Eakins of incest with their daughter, Ella. “She begins to be emotionally distraught,” Mr. Adams said. “She says Eakins spanked her to make her undress and complained about his ‘degrading touch.’ ” In 1897, Ella shot herself. The Crowells never spoke to Eakins again.

Was Eakins guilty? Kathleen Foster, curator of American art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and one of those Mr. Adams says protects Eakins’s image, said she had not read the book but called Mr. Adams’s conclusions “speculative.”

“He has tried to press the documents into a darker shape,” she said.

Eakins’s largest and most contentious work was “The Gross Clinic” (1875). It shows the prominent Philadelphia surgeon Dr. Samuel Gross operating on a figure lying with buttocks toward the viewer while doctors and students watch. The patient’s mother gestures hysterically.

It was rejected from several exhibitions and “has always played a central part in his mystique as an unjustly persecuted figure,” Mr. Adams said.

Ms. Johns has argued that the work is a celebration of a heroic figure, Dr. Gross. But Mr. Adams said he was sympathetic to the art historian Michael Fried’s darker interpretation. Mr. Adams sees it as a kind of family romance, with Dr. Gross, wielding his bloody scalpel over the androgynous figure, as a stand-in for Eakins’s father, and the hysterical woman as his mother. For Mr. Adams, the painting’s true theme is “savage penetration.”

Eakins, Mr. Adams said, “is bringing us into a psychological arena that we are somewhat familiar with, but also stranger than we are familiar with.”

“He’s showing it to us so we can enter it,” he said. “But we don’t need to live in that world all the time.”

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