December 27

Clare Coyle Taylor's sketch titled December 27 is a compact piece of art measuring just over six inches square. Within this small square, Taylor uses a tool typically reserved for children, a colored pencil, to create a skillfully disorganized array of lines. This disorganization doesn't seem to find a purpose in the sketch like a mind that continually wanders without finding an end. Frequently they run into each other, forming pockets of gray matter, where thoughts are formed but soon forgotten for others along the line. Occasionally these pockets form a coherent thought, highlighted with a burst of color contrasted to the dull background. The painting is split, like a personality, between two sides: the top left corner and the bottom right corner. In these corners lay a complex of lines so tightly woven to form solid shapes--creating a definable personality.

The Moonlit Landscape

The Moonlit Landscape by Washington Allston

With the expansion of America westward came new subjects to paint. Most of the artists coming to America at this time were from Europe and trained in the classical styles of painting. Upon encountering this polar opposite of a landscape, these artists instantly fell in love with the expansive scenery that America offered. By the 1800’s Romanticism gripped the world. At times it manifested in the passion shown between people, but America fell in love with itself and it came out through these wonderful landscapes.

Following in the tradition of Romanticism, Allston uses lighting and proportions to emphasize the mood behind the painting. The first thing one might note is how brightly the landscape is lit by what is supposed to be the moon. This is part of the effect that Allston is going for. The luminescence of the painting is created in part by Allston’s creative use of glazes. By layering his paints with glaze, Allston creates a glowing effect that, along with the atmospheric color, enhances the majesty of the landscape. To fit an impeccable amount of detail into this 25in x 36in canvas, Alston uses extremely fine and measured brush strokes.

The placement of the figures is essential to accentuating the landscape. Allston does this by creating them as sharp images in the bottom center and blurring the rest of the landscape. By drawing the observers eye to the bottom initially, it makes the observer see the rest as the background, however, because of the scale between the people and the background, it makes the background look expansive. The objective of the artist is not to show the people but to make the expansive landscape the main attraction. The stark contrast between the sky and the landscape as well as the cloud structure helps to accentuate the moon in the center. The line of moonlight divides the painting and goes through the arch of the bridge. This heavenly ray of moonlight helps add to the majestic mood and glow of the painting, which developed, with Allston’s help, into the style of the Hudson River School.

The City From Greenwich Village

When I think of a city, I imagine streets crowded with people, and heaven-scraping buildings lit by football field sized billboards; however, in John Sloan’s (1871-1951) The City From Greenwich Village (1922) he shows us an unglamorous cityscape from the Roaring Twenties. 

From a quick glance this painting looks like a dark city, maybe during the Great Depression, meant to convey a message of sadness.  Upon closer examination, however, the simple basics of a generic city appear. The elevated track, the hanging streetlights, the bottom level shops, the water tower atop the apartment building and so on. 

If this painting is of just another block in another city, then why did Sloan paint it? Obviously there was some sort of personal attachment to the place.  The slightly heavy brush strokes that give the painting a blurred look possibly indicate that it was recalled from a memory. Sloan explains:

“Looking south over lower Sixth Avenue from the roof of my Washington Place studio, on a winter evening. The distant lights of the great office buildings downtown are seen in the gathering darkness. The triangular loft building on the right had contained my studio for three years before.”

In his quote, Sloan points out another ‘hidden’ feature of this work.  In the top left corner the peachy glow of the city contrasts with the purple hues of the rest of the painting, dotted with yellow light throughout.  Possibly Sloan did this to set the culture of this particular street apart from the liveliness of the Roaring Twenties at full tilt.  This stretch of street has the feel of a calm suburban neighborhood in an urban setting.  Is this a protest against the invasion of skyscrapers and all-night clubs? Or could Sloan simply be showing us the beauty in the calm neighborhoods of urban life.