FINAL!

The Old Violin, 1886
Oil on Canvas
William Michael Harnett


The City from Greenwich Village, 1922
Oil on Canvas
John Sloan


The Old Violin is oil on canvas created by American artist William Michael Harnett in 1886. It is American modern art and was created at the end of the 19th century, a fairly quiet time in American history. This piece is still life and was created in the trompe l’oeil style (French for “fool the eye”). In trompe l’oeil, the artist creates the objects in the portrait in a manner where everything appears to be real. The City from Greenwich Village was painted by American artist John Sloan in 1922. It is also oil on canvas. While it too is American modern art it wasn’t created until the beginning of the 20th century in the Ash Can movement. It is a post-World War I piece and was created just as the “Roaring 20s” began.

In The Old Violin, the viewer must interpret what the subject is to them. The very nature of the differing objects in the painting can construe several different meanings. The artist puts forth a possible subject of “a look into (a moment in) the life of a musician.” But one can also look at the portrait and get the feeling the artist chose to put random items together and was simply creating art for the sake of art. The City from Greenwich Village on the contrary has a very definite subject, a view of the nightlife in New York City.

Both artists used several visual elements to create their pieces including color & light to give the picture time, line to create movement & define volume and shape. In Sloan’s piece, the prominent use of the color yellow in its primary (plain yellow), and tertiary (in-between colors such as yellow-orange) forms, creates the lighting that is cast at the base of the figures. This, along with darker hues, or colors, used on the upper parts of the figures, implies the absence of the sun overhead and thus the time of day, night! Harnett took a different approach in his work. Unlike Sloan’s painting which uses a mixture of color to create light and dark, Harnett use the technique chiaroscuro. With chiaroscuro the artist employs values, light and dark, to record contrasts of light and shadow in the natural world, contrasts that model mass for our eyes (Getlein 92). Sloan and Harnett both use contour line, a line that defines the outline or surface of an object or figure and directional line, one that creates movement through the painting. Sloan used contour line to give mass and volume to the train and track and directional line, which carries one’s eye from the front of the train back through the buildings. Harnett’s use of the combination of chiaroscuro and contour line on the music sheet make the paper curl off of the picture plane and gives the violin thickness or mass. Both artists used straight line in their works. The vertical lines (which are also directional) of the skyscraper on the right in Sloan’s piece create movement taking the eye upward and beyond the edge of the painting and diagonal lines used to create windows move the viewer’s eyes from the front of the building to the rear. The vertical lines of the bow, strings and the grooves in the door in The Old Violin create movement making the viewers eyes move up and down the painting.

Sloan and Harnett used the visual element of implied space. The space is implied because the portraits were created on a flat surface and there is no mass of the objects the viewer sees. Both paintings suggest depth in two dimensions; however, this goal was achieved very differently by each artist. When creating his buildings, Sloan employed linear perspective, where lines (that form an object) recede away from the viewer and disappear at a vanishing point, and proportion, size of objects in relation to other objects. Both of the elements make the larger objects of the painting seem closer to the viewer, thus making the viewer have to travel into the picture, into the implied space. Harnett, creating his painting in the trompe l’oeil style, utilized the chiaroscuro technique which, again, creates volume and mass. In The Old Violin, the artist was actually able to emulate the objects so well, that they were mistaken for three dimensional objects.

The Old Violin and The City from Greenwich Village are both balanced asymmetrically. When something is asymmetrical, or not symmetrical, forms on either side of the vertical axis (an imaginary line drawn down the center of the work) do not correspond to (or mirror) each other (Getlein 125). Harnett accomplished this by using the implied weight of the door-pull, newspaper clipping, envelope and a large portion of the violin and placing it to the left of the axis while the right side carries the implied weight of the bow, a smaller portion of the violin and the weightier metal hinges. Sloan placed several “thicker” buildings and the cluster of buildings in the horizon to the left of the axis while placing the train, smaller buildings and the skyscraper that runs off of the picture plane to the right.

Sloan’s work conveys a very different mood from that of Harnett’s. When viewing The Old Violin, one will have to take into account their interpretation of the piece in order to decide the mood. If one were to look at all of the objects and associate them as part of a musician’s accomplishments (e.g. is the newspaper clipping in reference to a great performance and does the envelope contain a congratulatory letter?), then a joyous, prideful mood may be obtained. However, if the objects represented something else to the viewer (e.g. the newspaper clipping is a bad review and the envelope contained a “pink-slip” so now the musician is “hanging up” his violin), than a somber melancholy mood would be construed. The City from Greenwich Village, on the contrary, has a very definite mood. It is one of energy. The bright light Sloan used for implied illumination, the people walking, and the cars driving toward the light gives the sense of nightlife. Perhaps a "Roaring 20s" party that was loud and lively enough to awaken an artist in the middle of the night!

The City from Greenwich Village and The Old Violin are both oil on canvas. This means that they were created on canvas that was stretched across a frame and the "paint" is actually pigmented oils. Sloan applied his oils liberally with obvious brushstrokes and he employed the glazing technique. This is where the artist applies thin layers of color upon one another. Harnett applied his oil deliberately ensuring his painting was devoid of brush strokes but he also employed glazing to give the aged affect to some objects.

The City from Greenwich Village is a very simplified piece. When looking at the painting, the viewer will see exactly what the artist is trying to convey yet the Sloan did not attempt to mimic each detail of what he was seeing the way Harnett did. The Old Violin is extremely realistic. That is the very nature of the painting. The artist intended for the viewer to mistake the objects for the real thing and he accomplished his goal quite well.

The City from Greenwich Village and The Old Violin are both very different works of art that will most likely appeal to very different audiences. The lively colors and the energetic mood of Sloan’s work make this painting inviting, and the subject and content gives the viewer an unmistakable connection to the city, any city. I chose this piece because even though I am not a city slicker, I enjoy associations with it. The City from Greenwich Village has the ability to spread its energy throughout a room while hanging from any wall. In my opinion, the darker colors and bland subject matter of The Old Violin, though very beautiful, make this piece a little less inviting. It tends to be more of a conversational piece rather than a warm decorative work. I chose this painting because I am fascinated with the work of the trompe l’oeil style. The talent of the artist resonates anew each time I view the piece (live or in a photo). This painting alone gave me a new appreciation for the works that are created by artists and I learned to look passed the “picture” on the canvas. After viewing Harnett’s The Old Violin for myself, the artists’ ability became the most beautiful thing to me when looking at ANY painting.


Source: Getlein, Mark, Living with Art, 2006 8th Ed.