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.