The title of the painting I chose to analyze is The City from Greenwich Village by John Sloan. This painting originated from the United States of America in 1922. Currently, the painting is at an exhibit in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. The type of media is oil on canvas. The City from Greenwich Village effectively displayed the city of New York in the early 1920s in a way that captivates its audience. In The City from Greenwich Village, Sloan captured the heart of the city and how it is constant movement in the early twentieth century.
John French Sloan was a twentieth-century painter raised in Pennsylvania. Sloan moved to New York with his wife and continued his work as an artist. Here, Sloan was captivated and mesmerized by the “depicting city life and city scenes.” Before long, Sloan became a well-known artist. He
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The importance of The City of Greenwich Village was to halt and capture the exquisiteness of the city. There were many instances in which Sloan displayed the unceasing motion of the city, from the moving train to the stirring automobiles. Additionally, the constant glow that illuminates the streets contributes in conveying the illusion of the city being in continual movement. I believe that Sloan was attempting to freeze this moment in time. In New York City, particularly in the 1920s, everything was happening at a very fast pace. By portraying this idea in his work, I believe that Sloan was trying to remind his audience to pause and take in the beauty of New York. He primarily did this by capturing the unique buildings that contain two vanishing points, as well as the majestic radiating city illuminating in the left corner. Sloan emphasized movement to remind his viewers that humans are always in constant motion. Once in a while, it is important to take in your environment and appreciate your
Just look at the quote I gave you earlier: “Brooklyn, New York, as the undefined, hard-to–remember the shape of a stain.” He sees it as nothing but a stain on the map. He goes on to talk about “…the sludge at the bottom of the canal causes it to bubble.” Giving us something we can see, something we can hear because you can just imagine being near the canal and hearing the sludge bubble make their popping noises as the gas is released. He “The train sounds different – lighter, quieter—in the open air,” when it comes from underground and the sight he sees on the rooftops. Although some are negative, such as the sagging of roofs and graffiti, his tone towards the moment seems to be admiration. In the second section, he talks about the smells of Brooklyn and the taste of food. He’d talk about how his daughter compares the tastes of pizzas with her “…stern judgments of pizza. Low end… New Hampshire pizza. … In the middle… zoo pizza. …very top… two blocks from our house,” and different it was where he’d grown up. He talks about the immense amount of “smells in Brooklyn: Coffee, fingernail polish, eucalyptus…” and how other might hate it, but he enjoys it. In the same section, he describes how he enjoys the Brooklyn accent and the noise and smells that other people make on the streets and at the park across from his house. “Charcoal smoke drifts into the
The Hudson River School was America’s first true artistic society. Its name originated to identify a group of New York City based landscape painters that emerged in about 1850 under the influence of Thomas Cole. Because of the inspiration exerted by his work, Cole is usually
An outstanding example of such “simple pleasures” enjoyed by these East Siders is seen in Jerome’s beautifully rendered oil painting Street Carousel, 1906 [fig. 68], a theme Myers depicted in watercolor as early as 1903 and echoed in an oil pastel that must also date to circa 1906 as that pastel and the oil painting are nearly identical. The lighter palette used imparts a lyrical charm to the streetscape, transforming the depressed neighborhood into a magical place. Brick facades reflect a pearly, un-modulated light throughout where shadows virtually disappear. Laundry hanging from rooftop wash lines seems at first glance to be puffy clouds.
Hopper is emphasising within the painting that the cinema is an extravagant place where our mental state is transformed for the duration of the film and takes the viewers mind away from the outside world and in doing so revealing the more realistic take on the modern American city. In regard to the modern American city, Henry Luce created the term American Century as the move from rural to urban environments became popular. This was an important transformation as it changed the society people were living in (city vs country). The key shift from the rural area is a knowledgeable community compared to the city which creates fluidity and the chance to recreate yourself. There was a huge influx of people into American cities which allows a sense of freedom, the past can more easily be hidden.
I circle around my easel, the subtle odor of turpenoid permeating the air. Instinctively, I begin to glide my brush across the textured canvas, transfixed as the vivid colors diffuse within each other, waltzing across the canvas and concentrating within the minuscule divots of its surface. My worries disintegrate and my mind untangles. Art has always been my "thing".