Visual Analysis (1870-Present)

 

The Brooklyn Bridge: Variation on an Old Theme -1939

Oil on Canvas

By Joseph Stella – born, 1877 in Muro Lucano, Italy – died, 1946 in Queens, NY

 

            The Brooklyn Bridge began being constructed in 1869 and was completed in 1883.  To Joseph Stella and many other artists of the time, the bridge was an icon of American achievement, a virtual engineering marvel.  Stella immigrated to New York from Italy at the age of 19 and began his art career. He first painted the Brooklyn Bridge in 1918 titled, “Brooklyn Bridge”, and his fascination with it led him to continue to paint it many other times throughout his lifetime.             

 

            In “The Brooklyn Bridge: Variation on an Old Theme”, the bridge is the main focus and content of the painting.  At the time when Stella created the painting, the bridge was viewed by society as a modern, technological marvel that embodied what modern civilization was capable of accomplishing. 

 

            Joseph Stella demonstrates the style of Italian Futurism in this work which originated in 1909 in Italy.  It was both an artistic and social movement that emphasized modern technology and speed, and machines like cars and planes, and the newly industrialized world.  Stella’s painting is a tribute to modern innovation and what at the time was known as, "The Machine Age".  This period in time was at its peak between WWI and WWII.  There were new inventions of machinery, such as the first jet engine to power an aircraft which was created in 1938.  Mass production of goods became a reality using an assembly line which was first used at the Ford motor plant. 

 

            The painting is a large vertical rectangle and gives the viewer an abstract view of the Brooklyn Bridge.  It is extremely large, standing almost six feet tall, which helps give a sense of the enormity of the bridge itself.  The views one can see through the bridge are broken up into smaller openings through Stella’s use of linear lines and angles.  The background skyline, bridge cables, and stone work of the bridge, can all be seen through these fractured views.  The combination of fracturing and color creates a stained glass look.  The thick, black, opaque arches of the bridge that form the top of the bridge itself, frames the colorful, stained glass-looking background making it seem like church windows and an altar.  It’s as if this modern piece of architecture is something to be worshiped. 

 

            The forms created in the painting are created using a closed shape, there are definite, distinct edges separating each section in the painting from the next.  Stella’s use of bold, bright colors in contrast with the black, linear lines give the painting an Art Deco look, a decorative style that was popular in America in the 1930’s.  He uses rich hues such as emerald green, gold, scarlet red, violet and deep blues, all with dark values and strong intensity, reminiscent of colors one would see in stained glass.  The colors are deepest toward the base of the bridge in the foreground, and lighten and soften through the openings of the bridge's cables, highlighting the city skyline.  Stella gives a futuristic, modern view of the Brooklyn Bridge.  The small skyline painted in the foreground has rounded stage lights beaming up toward it to draw the eye to it, and is situated on a bold strip of emerald green.  It can be assumed that this tiny skyline is Brooklyn, and this magnificent bridge would lead one to the grand and wondrous city of Manhattan.  The bridge is a link between the two worlds, the vessel connecting them, and is capable of transporting one to another world.  The painting has a fantastical feel of crossing into a magical, far-off place where anything is possible.  It gives a similar impression as if one was traveling to Emerald City from the movie, The Wizard of Oz, which was released the same year Stella created the painting.

 

            Stella uses shading of colors from dark to light to create shadows and illumination. He highlights the dark bridge cables so they appear to be metallic and 3-dimensional in shape.  The massive cables begin on the left and right sides in the foreground of the painting, and span all the way to the top of it.  The contrast of light and dark tones illuminates the night time skyline in the background and gives the painting luminosity.  The deep, intense colors are highlighted by lighter shades of the same color, and it appears as if light is streaming into the bridge from the city lights surrounding it.  The scale of the bridge is enormous, spanning the entire length of the painting, and it seems as if it’s almost as massive as New York City itself.  The city of Brooklyn in the foreground is dwarfed by the bridge and the Manhattan skyline, making Brooklyn seem inconsequential.  By using scale and proportion, Stella conveys the message that the Brooklyn Bridge is the pathway to a greater, larger-than-life city, full of color and wonder. 

 

            The illusionistic space in this painting is created using several techniques.  The cables of the bridge begin in the foreground and using linear perspective, converge at the center top of the painting.  The use of linear perspective in this way gives the illusion of depth, distinguishing foreground from background.  Stella also uses this technique with all of the small black cable lines that run vertically along either side of the bridge.  Linear perspective is also used horizontally to create depth along all of the small, window-like openings spanning both sides of the bridge.  Overlapping is used where the larger cables overlap the open spaces on the sides of the bridge, making the cables seem as if they are right in front of the viewer. The two smaller cables on either side of the bridge at the top of the painting overlap the outer edges of the painting, giving the impression that they continue on, well beyond the edges of the canvas.  The two central cables of the bridge are both very large in the foreground and taper off in scale as they reach the top of the bridge. The intensity of the colors in the foreground gives the viewer the perception that the cables are in front of the bridge.  The colors used in the foreground are much brighter and deeper than the lighter hues that are used in the background of the painting which helps to create this effect.  

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Citations

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National Gallery of Art. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.nga.gov/features/slideshows/selections-from-the-modern-and-contemporary-collections.html#slide_6

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BLOG. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://exhibitions.guggenheim.org/futurism/.

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Blitz, M. (2018, March 6). 30 Machines That Changed the World. Retrieved from https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/g17885261/machines-that-changed-the-world/