Activity #13 - Write About It!

The City from Greenwich Village by John Sloan is oil on canvas, 1922. In this representational piece, Sloan captured a night in the life of New York City as he could see it from his apartment in Greenwich Village. Sloan was known as (one of) The Eight or an Ash Can Painter because of this work (as well as others he painted with similar subject and content).(1) Works in the “Ash Can School” movement consisted of painting with busy streets, tenements and back alleys as subjects.(2) The City from Greenwich Village was completed during the period known as “The Roaring 20s”. It was post WWI and Americans were starting to pick up the pieces of their lives, including their nightlife. Though prohibition was in effect at this time, people still enjoyed night time social engagements. Notice how your eyes are drawn to the light beaming from beneath the subway train. One gets the feeling of a charged, high energy atmosphere permeating through the apparent rain shower. Though Art Deco would have been a better known movement of that time, this piece does not fall into that category. Art Deco was bold, fancy and boastful. The City from Greenwich Village was simply a snapshot, of sorts, of real life as it happened so it can also be associated with the Realism movement.

The Old Violin by William Michael Harnett is oil on canvas, 1886. Created in the late 19th century, this piece is a still life that was done in the trompe l’oeil (fool the eye) style. The objects in this painting were meant to look real and the artist made every effort to achieve that goal by deliberately applying paint devoid of brushstrokes as well as employing other techniques. The Old Violin is a representational piece that simply displays objects that could be found in everyday life and thus can be associated with the Realism movement. This technique of painting has its origins in the Baroque period but was revived by Harnett during the American Modern art period.(3) When looking at The Old Violin, it can be difficult to associate the painting with one period or another or even one movement or another. Because of the trompe l’oeil technique used, all of the objects look real and they don’t seem dated. The violin and even the envelope are both something that could be something found in everyday life from 1886 to 2007. Since trompe l’oeil was not a widely practiced method, it too never “ran out of steam” or has become dated (it’s still practiced today). The Old Violin could easily pass for a painting that was created during the post-modern era.


(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcan_School
(2) https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/img/assets/3760/al_acta_33_2.pdf
(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trompe_l