The Brooklyn Bridge

The 19th century equivalent of a trip to the moon.

When you begin talking about iconic American landmarks, it's difficult to separate the arts from the sciences--architecture from engineering, beauty from function. Take the Brooklyn Bridge, for example. I have a bridge I want to tell you (about). Okay, bad joke, yet quite apart from stand-up comedy, no bridge has been metaphorically bought and sold more often. German immigrant, John Roebling's engineering masterpiece has been far more influential as a subject for painters, poets, playwrights, novelists, and movie makers than any other bridge in the world, including the London Bridge (now in Arizona)&nbsp keeps falling down in the children's nursery rhyme.

Though rising to hair-raising heights, far more people died on the ground from
what was called "caisson disease" than from falls.

 

Graceful engineering, subject to
structural overkill, might explain why
the bridge has stood for 129 years.

Roebling's Brooklyn Bridge has never fallen down, though some, shortly after it was built (1870-83) weren't so sure it wouldn't. Six days after its opening, a rumor the bridge was about to collapse caused a human stampede in which twelve people were killed. Quite apart from those, the bridge was a killer. Worker safety standards were developed "on site" as the bridge was being built. The number 27 is often mentioned, but that's only an estimate of those killed during the thirteen years the bridge was under construction. Both John Roebling and his son, Washington, were incapacitated as a result of injuries sustained in simply supervising construction (John Roebling died of his injuries before the bridge was completed). Washington Roebling's wife, Emily, ended up supervising the project in her husband's place for some eleven years. (He gave her a crash course in bridge construction from home.)

Brooklyn Bridge, 1920s, Joseph Stella



The pedestrian level, Stella's inspiration.

Though the bridge was far from being the first suspension bridge ever built (it was Roebling's fourth), it was, at the time, the longest, at well over a mile in length (a record it held until 1903). At some $15-million, it was also the most expensive. Artistically, John Roebling's Neo Gothic tower drawings, indeed, the bridge itself, are works of art. As so often happens with graceful iconic landmarks, art inspires art. The most famous of the bridge's painters was undoubtedly Joseph Stella (above, right). He did an entire series of abstract futurist paintings peering through Roebling's soaring granite and limestone arches from the bridge's upper level pedestrian walkway (six lanes of vehicular traffic utilized the lower level).




Brooklyn Bridge, 1983, Andy Warhol

Joseph Stella wasn't the only iconic American painter to be inspired by the iconic bridge. Andy Warhol, some sixty years later, utilizing photo-silkscreen media (above), rendered his own impressions as have countless photographers, sculptors, muralists, even tattoo artists. In 2008, a Danish conceptual artist, Olafur Eliasson (bottom), went so far as to create a temporary waterfall cascading into the East River from one of the bridge's piers.

A bridge over troubled waters? New York City Waterfalls, 2008, Olafur Eliasson

Painting Bridges

The Brooklyn Bridge, Leroy Neiman

If you're a landscape artist of some standing, the chances are you've painted at least one bridge sometime during your lengthy contribution to art history. Speaking of history, the experts tell us that the oldest existing bridges today can be found in Greece dating back to the 13th-century BC. I doubt they've been painting them that long, but artists have long liked painting bridges. I've painted a few highly salable covered bridges (bottom, paintings, not the bridges themselves). Years ago I painted the bridge crossing the Muskingum River into my hometown. That was about 1990. They tore it down shortly thereafter and replaced it with a strange, asymmetrical, concrete arch affair which I also painted. Then I went back in history and found photos of the original steel truss bridge, which washed away in the devastating 1913 flood. I sold all three to a local restaurant where, I assume, they still hang today. For the most part, bridges are graceful, sometimes quite beautiful, and they're laden with a boatload of symbolism. They bypass problems, they smooth out the rough spots in our lives, and they connect things, both literally and figuratively. You know something is important when its noun form also becomes a verb. That is to say, bridges bridge.

The Langlois Bridge at Arles, 1888, Vincent van Gogh

Leroy Neiman's Brooklyn Bridge (top) is one of my favorites; but some other very important artists have also painted bridges, though most of them are far less important than the New York City landmark. Vincent van Gogh painted The Langlois Bridge at Arles (above), in 1888. It's still there today, likely because van Gogh painted it. The Impressionist, Alfred Sisley, painted The Bridge at Villeneuve la Garenne (below), 1872. It looks to be a little more important a thoroughfare than van Gogh's modest little span. So far as I know it is also still in place.

The Bridge at Villeneuve la Garenne,1872, Alfred Sisley

Without doubt, the consummate bridge painter of the Impressionist era would have to be Claude Monet. He may also be the only artist who ever designed and built his own bridge, literally painting it (a pale green) then setting about painting pictures of it. His Japanese Bridge over the lily pond at Giverny was the subject of no less than twelve painting efforts, between 1897 and 1899 (mostly 1899). I've seen it. I've walked across it. I only wish I'd had time to paint it, although the skies were drizzling rain at the time. Rain or shine, I could see why Monet loved it so much and why so many artists since his time, in visiting his home and gardens at Giverny, have also set up their easels before its graceful wooden beams (below).

The greatest bridge builder and painter of the Impressionist era.

For the most part the bridges artist paint are more important than the artists who paint them. In fact, their social importance and architectural/engineering beauty is likely why artists paint them. One of the oldest bridges in Europe spans the Arno River at Florence, Italy. The present Ponte Vecchio (below), built to replace some earlier wooden spans washed away by flooding, was completed in 1345 on a site where the river is at its narrowest, and where a Roman bridge had stood more than a thousand years earlier. As bridges go, it's not very attractive. In fact, of all the bridges ever painted by artists, this one vitally needs the artist's touch to imbue it with any sense of romantic beauty associated with most other such spans. Photographs actually tend to emphasize its uglier qualities. The Ponte Vecchio also has the distinction of being a key part of the first urban rapid transit system ever built. Designed by the famous art historian, painter, and architect, Giorgio Vasari in 1565, the Vasari Corridor passes over the shops along the bridge in order to connect the Palazzo Vecchio (Florence's town hall) with the Palazzo Pitti, allowing Cosimo I de' Medici to ride his horse to work each morning without encountering the rush hour traffic in the streets below. To enforce the prestige of the bridge, in 1593 the Medici Grand Dukes prohibited butchers from selling there. Their place was immediately taken by gold merchants. They're still there today where once hung out over the edge of the bridge the city's butcher shops (a great convenience for disposing of unwanted meat scraps). The bridge narrowly escaped destruction by the Nazis when they evacuated Florence in the waning days of WW II. It was the only bridge crossing the Arno left in place.

The Vasari Corridor remains today, though it's been turned into an art museum
featuring portraits of famous artists of the past from around the world.

Almost as old, and also in Italy, painters have long flocked to the famous Rialto Bridge crossing the Grand Canal in Venice. The present stone structure replaced two earlier bridges which had collapsed under the weight of spectators watching; parades of boats in the water below (that must have put a damper on the festivities). It was designed and completed in 1591 by the appropriately named Antonio da Ponte (Ponte means bridge in Italian). So radical was it's design at the time many feared to cross it, expecting it to suffer the same fate as its predecessors. They needn't have worried. The ultimate in Venetian bridgework has been there now for over four hundred years.

Big name artists such as Venice's own Canaletto and the American painter John Singer Sargent have all painted the Rialto. For some unknown reason, Sargent chose to paint under the bridge. Maybe it was raining at the time.

One of the strangest looking bridges ever painted by artists (or ever built for that matter) is London's Iconic Tower Bridge, completed in 1894 to span the Thames without, at the same time blocking it to ship traffic. It's a drawbridge, the mechanical elements hidden inside medieval Gothic towers on either bank of the river, which are joined at the top by a then state-of-the-art steel truss span to allow workers to cross the rive while the bridge below is open to nautical traffic. It's often mistaken for the tuneful "London Bridge" which was not falling down but was, in fact, taken down and shipped block for block to a site in the Arizona desert as the centerpiece for a housing development.

It's in London but London Bridge it's not.

The other two most painted bridges in the world are both American suspension bridge, one each firmly ensconced on each coast. Unlike London Bridge, which the Brits sold to the Americans, the Brooklyn Bridge has never been sold, though many have tried. Designed and build in 1883 by John Augustus Roebling and later his son, Washington Roebling, at great cost both financially and in the loss of lives, the Brooklyn Bridge across the East River is actually a few years older than London's Tower Bridge, though decades ahead as to engineering and design. Like the Tower Bridge, it's stone towers have Gothic elements as seen in its pointed arches, but beyond that, with its Roebling invented steel cables, the two bear few similarities as to size and appearance. Starting about 1920, the American artist, Joseph Stella (below-left), practically made a career for himself churning out dozens of modernist paintings inspired by its design. Or, maybe he was just taking his cues from Claude Monet.

The Brooklyn Bridge definitely has a personality all its own, depending on how you look at it.

And finally, the "baby" of the bunch, the 1930s vintage Golden Gate Bridge across the entrance to San Francisco Bay is probably the most visually impressive of the whole lot. Though no longer the longest or tallest, or most trafficked bridge in the world, that hasn't kept daredevils, suiciders, or artists from taking advantages of its graceful, towering curves. Of all these bridges, this is the only one I've ever actually crossed, though I've seen from a distance the Ponte Vecchio (I was not impressed). I could never say that about the Golden Gate. Whether on it, or looking back at it from Marin County, its northern terminus, the only word that comes to mind is "awesome." I'm guessing all the artists below would agree with me on that.

By the way, the Golden Gate Bridge is a rusty red, not Golden.

Copyright, Jim Lane

The Millfield Bridge, 1970, Jim Lane
(I've never crossed this one either.)





 

Cityscapes

London, Sergey Kachin, the traditional landmarks in a painterly style of impressionism Monet would have adored. (He spent several months in London painting the city orange and blue.)

Have you ever gone in search of one thing only to find something better? A few days ago, I went in search of paintings of London, England, for another posting. I found the London cityscapes, of course. You'd have to be blind to miss then. Not only that, but my wife and I were intimately familiar with the subject having just returned from a week of gallery-hopping. No, I didn't see Her Highness, but I did get a good look at her hat and a few other sparkling trinkets stowed away at the Tower of London. London, with all its iconic landmarks is a painter's heaven as well as his or her creative hell.

The London cityscape spans some 123 years. Both Dawson and Moore capture the essence of the city, flavored moderately by a necklace of landmarks, old and new. How many can you identify?

Let me explain. Simply painting standard, stand-along landmarks such as the afore-mentioned tower and its companion, the Tower Bridge, Big Ben and Westminster Palace (home to England's parliament), Buckingham Palace (home to England's queen), not to mention newer landmarks such as the London Eye, the London "nose" (the Brits call it the gherkin) and the Shard. Sergey Kachin (top) hardly misses a cue with his Big Ben, Westminster Palace, Westminster Cathedral, even the Westminster Bridge all with a Fauvist palette only slightly tinged with reality. Monet would have been aghast.



Winter in Central Park. Mark Harrison has painted a view of the iconic venue which I dearly love. Any New Yorker would recognize it instantly. Yet there's no Empire State Building, no U.N., no Brooklyn Bridge, not even the city's most famous work of art, Bartholdi's Liberty Enlightening the People.

Distance--Brooklyn Bridge,
Danijela Dan

In choosing representative cityscapes, I've limited myself to cities I've personally explored, and paintings which have not stooped to simple "landmarkism" with which to gain their identity. Robert Finale's Christmas in New York (below), and Danijela Dan's Distance--Brooklyn Bridge, while attractive, and no doubt quite salable, where would they be without the bridge and the Rockefeller Center centerpiece? Although the Brook-lyn Bridge would probably tie with Lon-don's Tower Bridge as the most painted bridge in the world, yet in both cases, there are limitations as to creativity and novel presentations. Lesser landmarks such as Rockefeller Center (minus the tree) offer greater opportunities for freedom of expression.

Christmas in New York, Robert Finale--cityscapes aiming to capture the essence of the city while only referencing the landmarks without dwelling on them exclusively.

The artists of the Parisian cityscapes (below) are unknown (or unlisted). In Paris Cityscape (upper image, below) the artist relies upon ambience with which to identify the city he or she obviously knows well. There's no Eiffel Tower or Arch de Triumph to captivate tourist. The Paris trappings are subtle but effective. However in the watercolor image (below) having the enigmatic title I Love You, (probably I Love You, Paris by John Salminen) the artist "clobbers" the scene with his or her Eiffel Tower, yet presents a novel approach emphasizing the sheer height and engineering magnitude of Paris' number one landmark. In essence, if you feel you must paint urban landmarks, an innovative approach will lift the painting from trite to triumphant.

Two artists, one city, two radically different approaches.

So, where did this infatuation with the urban landscape originally develop and who triggered it? Until the middle of the 17th-century, cityscapes, for the most part, cityscapes were simply landscapes with a few tall buildings. There was little or no recognition as to cities being "beautiful" and thus few attempts to render them as beautiful works of art. What few cityscapes that survive from earlier eras are often negative comparisons to the pastoral beauty of "God's country," as seen in Durer's Innsbruck Seen from the North (below), from around 1496. Strangely, this attitude persists even today. Cityscapes before the 17th century were usually hand drawn in conjunction with maps or as painted backgrounds for religious scenes.

Innsbruck Seen from the North, circa 1496, Albrecht Durer

The Little Street, 1657-58,
(oil on canvas), Jan Vermeer

Most art historians would agree that among the first artists to recognize the urban environment as a viable (indeed, beautiful) subject for the painters art was likely the Dutch painter, Johannes (Jan) Vermeer in his painting The Little Street (left), dating from 1657-58. Here there is no map involved, no peripheral land-scape, no religious content. Some ex-perts have suggested this may have been the scene across the street from his studio (the property on the right in the painting once belonged to Vermeer’s aunt). In any case, what strikes us about the image is its ordinariness. It's not beautiful, inspiring, or in any way a glor-ification of a street in Delft, Netherlands. It's a depiction, nothing more and nothing less, except for the fact that it preceded Vermeer's more famous cityscape A View of Delft (below) from 1660-61, which suggest The Little Street might be considered the first bonafide cityscape ever painted.

Note that the colors differ drastically in the two images above. The upper one would seem to be the more accurate.

Copyright, 1970, Jim Lane

Manhattan Morning, 1970, Jim Lane.
One of my few attempts at capturing
the essence of a city while relying
only minimally on a famous landmark.
The work was done with a palette
knife in oils.
 

 

New York Art

New York's Central Park in Winter

Madison Square, 1906, Charles Hoffbauer

In my continuing series exploring the art of the fifty individual United States, I'm today dealing with a state that almost touches my home state of Ohio. Pretty much the only thing preventing the state of New York from touching Ohio is Erie, Pennsylvania. In writing about the various states, each presents it's own difficulties. In some cases I have to scrounge to find good art representing that state. Let's face it, not all states are equal when it comes to creative output. However, when it comes to New York, just the opposite problem presents itself. Probably no other state or city in the country has contributed so much to, not just this nation's art, but to that of the entire world as a whole, on a par with Paris, Rome, London, Venice, Florence, Amsterdam, and a few others. And ironically, that's mostly been within the past hundred years. Today, if there still remains an "art capital of the world," New York would be it.

 

View from Mt. Holyoke, The Oxbow, 1836, Thomas Cole

Kindred Spirits, 1849, Asher B. Durand

When we delve into why all this might be so we must look back at two vitally important "schools" of art and one important actual school of art (more on that later). New York (both state and city) was the birthplace of American art. One might argue, I suppose, in favor or Boston or Philadelphia, but art grows from the roots of the money tree, and that, of course, has long grown along the curb of 11 Wall Street, NY, NY, 10005. The American landscape painter, Thomas Cole, has long been regarded as the founder of what's long been regarded as the Hudson River School. That basically encompasses most of the New York landscape painting from around 1825, up through about 1875 (some would argue as late as 1900). Geographically it ran from Staten Island to the Adirondacks and the headwaters of the Hudson. That's a good size hunk of real estate and some of the most beautiful (back then at least) in the whole country. Artists such as Cole, Asher B. Durand, Edwin Whitefield, Albert Bierstadt, Edwin Church, Thomas Moran, and John Frederick Kensett either "taught" at the school or graduated from it to later paint the glories of the American West.

 

Willem De Kooning of the New York School.

The other great "school" has come to be known simply as the New York School. Except for having their financial center in New York City, separated in time by nearly a hundred years, the two had absolutely nothing to do with one another. In fact, only in it's waning years did the New York School artists actually begin to paint New York City itself. If their work had any representational content at all, it was mostly figural in nature, seldom (if ever) landscapes. That's not to say the New York school, and to a lesser degree the Hudson River School, did not influence present day urban painters. It did, but only because the city and the river which runs through it didn't go away, nor cease being important to the Empire State and the "Big Apple" which grew from the Wall Street money tree.

 

Morning, Looking East over the Hudson Valley from Catskill Mountains,
1848, Frederic Edwin Church

Having said all this, it's important to realize that there is much more to New York (and by inference, New York Art) than the Hudson River and the megalopolis at its mouth. The city may seem like the proverbial "tail that wags the dog," yet be that as it may, there's still a pretty hefty dog stretching to the west and north. And once you leave behind the gorgeous Edwin Church sunrises (above) and the Joseph Stella bridge (the Brooklyn Bridge), there's a lot of people, places, and things to see and paint. The unfortunate part for writers like myself, is that the art of western New York is not that different from the art of western Pennsylvania, only further north (colder and snowier). That's why the temptation to dwell so heavily upon eastern New York is so overwhelming.

Joy Ride, 1953, Grandma Moses

Something of a joy ride in the summer.

However, if one wants to sing the praises of great art produced in the rest of New York, you have only to look at the folk art of Anna Mary Robertson (Grandma) Moses. She lived most of her 101 years in the upstate area of Bennington. You know you've arrived when they use your work on a postage stamp (left). Too bad for Mrs. Moses, it came eight years after her death. A little further west we come upon the lonely presence of Charles Burchfield's Rainy Night in Buffalo, New York (below), from 1930. And at the other end of the Hudson, we encounter the nautical rendering of Fitz Hugh Lane (some relation, I like to think) New York Harbor, which, as the name explains, deals with the busy shipping commerce of one of the best ports in the world. The city is barely visible along the far shore.



A Rainy Night in Buffalo, 1930, Charles Burchfield

New York Harbor, 1860, Fitz Hugh Lane

 

New York's Art Students League, 215 West 57th Street.

Copyright Jim Lane

NY, NY, 1970, Jim Lane

The third school having so great an influence upon New York art and artist is an actual training institution known, with no small amount of affection, as the New York Art Students League located at 215 West 57th Street. Today it serves more than 2,500 art students representing some 130 countries around the world (and you thought I was exaggerating when I suggested New York was the art capital of the world). Founded in 1875, if I were to include a list of artists who have taught there or graduated from there (or both), it would read like a Who's Who of the greatest creative geniuses America has ever produced. Today the influence of the Art Students League has waned somewhat simply because of the spread of local university colleges of art making it much easier (and cheaper) to obtain an art education than in the past. But that hasn't lessened the draw of a city as vast and vibrant as New York in attracting artists wanting to see and sell and celebrate all the visual wonders the city has to offer.

Statue of Liberty, 1886, Edward Moran

I've spent little more than a few hours in the city yet back about 1970 I painted my first New York street scene (based on a photo taken by my brother), NY, NY (above, right) using a palette knife. I sold it almost immediately so I painted a second version. It's so dull and gray, I hesitate to expose it, but then, New York City can also be rather dull and gray. I've done a couple of the Statue of Liberty too. In doing so, I've joined the ranks (quite low in the ranks) of artist starting with Edward Moran who was probably the first to paint the great green lady on they day she was dedicated in 1986. Likewise, New York's famed Brooklyn Bridge has long been a favorite of painters coming to the big city, starting even before it was completed in 1883 as seen in the Currier & Ives print (below) dating from 1881. Thus Joseph Stella's iconic images of the bridge (below, right) dating from around 1919 came well after other artists had painted the span many times.

The Brooklyn Bridge, 1881, Currier and Ives.

The Brooklyn Bridge, 1920, Joseph Stella

Whatever the many paint-worthy sights and scenes to be found in the other cities and countryside of New York, it is the New York itself, alive with color, action, and dynamic excitement that keeps drawing artists back to what may be the most attractive and demanding images of the city to ever hit the canvas--the streets. Though artists have long ago found and fallen in love with the streets of New York in all kinds of weather, all times of the day, all times of the year, it would seem the most beguiling of all these are the modern-day scenes of the bright lights of traffic, illuminated billboards, and towering towers. Perhaps no artist has ever captured it better than in the panoramic painting which someone has titled simply, New York. It's not the bright lights of Broadway but of Times Square, and few places in all the world could match the excitement captured by this unknown artist.

New York, Unknown artist--Sinatra's "city that never sleeps."

 

21st-Century Architecture--Chicago's Aqua Tower

Frank Gehry's New York (center) as seen from the Freedom Tower's 102 story height looking east. The Manhattan Bridge is on the left, the Brooklyn bridge is on the right.

During the past few months I've started highlighting a number of 21st-century contemporary artists. Today I noticed that I've been somewhat derelict in doing the same for this century's architects and some of their startling structures starting to pop up amid the skyline of some of our major cities. Actually, I first realized this neglect last month as we were looking out from the observation level of New York City's Freedom Tower. Not far from the Brooklyn Bridge was a strikingly beautiful, but also strikingly strange, sort of twisted high-rise which mystified me. In returning home, I came to realize that what I'd see (above)was architect Frank Gehry's 76-story office and apartment tower called simply, "New York," and that I'd already written about him and it. Apparently what I wrote hadn't made much of an impression on me though the item has had 397 "hits," which is about average for an architectural piece.

 

Chicago's Aqua Tower, 2009, Jeanne Gang, architect.

As a result, I've selected fourteen exceptional architectural works to highlight over the next few months. Other than the fact they were all completed in the past seventeen years of this century, they have little in common (although four just happen to be art museums). Two are office/apartment buildings, and two are multi-purpose college buildings. There's also a library, a community center, a hospital, a concert venue, even a spaceport and a parking garage. They're quite an eclectic mix. Today I've chosen one of my favorites, architect, Jeanne Gang's Aqua Tower located in Chicago's Lakeshore East development area. At 859 feet in height, and boasting 87 floors, the Aqua Tower is the tallest skyscraper ever designed by a woman architect leading a design team.

 

The century of the curve. No more glass boxes.

Concrete meets glass as
never before.

The architect of the Aqua Tower considers it an updated version of one of Chicago's most famous landmarks: Marina City. The building is like someone set the ocean on its side, all white caps and undulating waves. The Aqua is a block north of Millennium Park, making it convenient for taking selfies in front of the polished stainless steel Bean. Like the Bean, the form of the Aqua is unique. Composed of irregularly shaped concrete slabs. Jeanne Gang cites the striated limestone outcroppings that are a common topographic feature of the Great Lakes region as inspiration for these slabs. But this sinuous shape is not just a mere formal gesture. It's also a strategy to extend the views and maximize solar shading. The wave-like form of the building is both organic and fluid. This simulates a continuous motion as spectators move around the structure.

 

Units range from one-bedroom studio to eight-room apartments occupying one end of an entire floor.

Two-story condo's on the lowest level (beneath the roof garden) are being offered for sale at about $4-million (that's a bargain, they were originally $6-million). A room with a view (and a little more) rents for $1,955 per month. As for the seven and eight room apartments, "If ya gotta ask, ya can't afford-em." And what, besides a strangely shaped balcony, a view to die for, a modest number of square feet, and a few empty rooms, does one get for such "high-rise" prices? Aqua’s amenities, include 24 elevators, its sprawling outdoor deck with two swimming pools, an urban garden respite, gazebos, hot tubs, a walking/running track, a fire pit, and 27,000 square-feet of indoor recreational space all shared by 747 well-to-do neighbors plus Radisson Blu hotel guests.

The Aqua Tower is not just a skyscraper but an entire neighborhood

In addition, there is the 215-room hotel (floors 1-18), 476 rental residential units (floors 19-52), and 263 condominium units & penthouses (floors 53-81). Construction was started in 2007 and completed in 2009 at a cost of $300-million. The Aqua is the first downtown building in Chicago to combine condos, apartments, and a hotel. It's also the tenth tallest building in the city. The building contains 55,000 sq. ft. (5,100 m²) of retail and office space. There's also a parking garage and a CVS pharmacy on the property.

Inside, it's nice, but it's not the Trump Tower.

Curvy balconies and rooms with a view.