Mid-Morning Art Thread [Kris]

Lower Manhattan (aka Broad and Wall Streets)
Childe Hassam

This is a painting of the busy street in front of the New York Stock Exchange during the early Twentieth Century. Today the street is blocked off to motorized traffic, but Hassam depicts a wide boulevard full of pedestrians and horse-drawn buses, taxis, and other vehicles. The Stock Exchange is on the center-left. Straight ahead is the Greek-temple-like Federal Hall building where George Washington was sworn in, and the Bill of Rights was written. This painting depicts symbols of America’s political and financial power in the middle of its most populous city.

Childe Hassam was an American Impressionist. One of Impressionism’s goals was to capture a moment in time. The modern world was particularly attractive to these artists. Its busy lifestyle inspired them to capture its fleeting moments, to give an impression of what this world felt like. The rush of modernity, moving at a blur, was captured in fuzzy brushstrokes and hurried technique.

I like the composition of this piece. The artist places the viewer high over the street, maybe four or five stories above the crowd, looking down and out over the crowded streetscape. The high angle dwarfs the human figures and makes the buildings seem taller. I like how Hassam decided not to put the viewer too high up. The vanishing point and horizon line are near the canvas’ center. To me, the buildings appear to loom over the street and the people, and me. They look less like buildings and more like cliff-faces.

Hassam used a tall and narrow canvas that mimics the buildings’ height and makes the street seem narrow. In your mind’s eye, put this scene on a horizontal canvas. Notice how you lose the view and the impact. Hassam would have to either zoom the view out to something more panoramic and lose detail or zoom in and lose the deep view down the street or the buildings that line the street. Either way, the urban canyon effect is wrecked.

Another trait of Impressionism is its depiction of color and light at a specific moment in time. In Lower Manhattan, it is near midday. The sun is high in a blue, cloudless sky. The buildings on the left have a white and gold shine. The buildings on the right cast a deep shadow over the street and people — but notice what else is going on with the lighting. Not only does the sunlight shine down at a steep angle so that the Stock Exchange is in full sun, but a beam of light shining down Wall Street in the distance also points right on it. Hassam casts two huge spotlights onto the Exchange. He wants me to see it, to focus on it especially.

I decided to look this location up on Google Maps. According to StreetView, it seems that Hassam exaggerated scale some. Unfortunately, StreetView’s angle is very different (it’s street view after all), so my comparison is limited. Over the one hundred eighteen years since Hassam painted Lower Manhattan, some of the buildings have changed, but not the important landmarks. In the painting, the road seems wider and the buildings taller. Additionally, Federal Hall looks more distant here than Google Maps. I think the artist manipulated perspective and proportions to impress me.

In this painting, Childe Hassam depicted New York City, and this location specifically, as a bright, clean, busy urban center. The mood is mostly positive. I see a lot of pride here. It also feels a little oppressive. From this angle, the buildings create this narrow passageway flanked by a long, tall wall that seems to have no end. I’m above the bustling fray but far below the canyon ridge. I think Lower Manhattan accurately conveys the sense of smallness I felt when I first visited Manhattan. This work is about the wealth, power, and prestige of the United States of America, and maybe of New York City specifically.

posted by Open Blogger at 09:30 AM

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