Lisa N. Peters
(Read Ashcan School-Part I and Ashcan School-Part II)

Ashcan School continued . . . Now that some issues of this quite confusing term have been addressed, it’s time to turn to the question of . . . what is it that makes an Ashcan School work, which seems less confusingWhat can be said in brief is that, instead of the genteel subjects painted by American artists inspired by French Impressionism, whose urban views generally consisted of the parks and squares frequented by the wealthy, Ashcan images depicted the new realities of urban experience in the early twentieth century, which meant that their creators (or the New York Realists) did not shy away from capturing the gritty, crude, and seamy aspects of New York life, not neglecting evidence of the disparities in social rank that were apparent during a day of dramatic immigration, a burgeoning lower class, dense neighborhoods bursting with tenements where laundry lines crisscrossed over dark alleyways, and urban crowding. They also painted the novelties of modern life in the city. They portrayed crowded street scenes where the El train rumbled overhead (the full awareness of the misery caused by these noisy tracks clanking overhead and dripping oil on pedestrians was not yet at the forefront in the 1910s), Chinese restaurants (a new phenomenon of New York life then—imagine that!), boxing matches (this was the prehistoric age of American professional sports), and children sledding in Central Park (it was a new idea then that children should have free time, the concept that is now destroying our lives—or at least mine), and yes, occasionally, vagrants picking through garbage left on the street.

William Glackens (1870-1938)
Park at Gracie Square
(Carl Schurz Park, New York)
ca. 1922
Yet, despite the newspaper illustration background of many of the Ashcan/New York realists/Eight, their works were not exposés in the manner of the photographer and journalist Jacob Riis, but more objective records of what they saw. They enjoyed the aesthetic challenges of their subject matter, and as has been pointed out (as in Metropolitan’s American Impressionism and Realism, 1994), their vision was not “as tough, bitter, and pessimistic as that of their French predecessors, for they still were touched by the euphemistic spirit that buoyed the American Impressionists. And although the Realists identified with the working class . . .they nevertheless subordinated their role as propagandists to their role as artists. (p. 5)” (This is what Art Young objected to—see Ashcan School-Part II).
Arthur Bowen Davies (1862 – 1928)
Children Playing, ca. 1896
Oil on canvas, 18 x 22 in.
Instead of the high-key colors and scintillating brushwork associated with Impressionist art, Ashcan works were painted in a darker, more painterly manner that was consistent with the artists’ search for new subject matter and probably with their desire for a break from the Impressionist obsession with painting sunlight, which had perhaps become somewhat tiresome. The creators of Ashcan images were indebted to the paintings of Manet, Degas, and Daumier, and their Baroque predecessors such as Hals, Velasquez, and Rembrandt, which to the young Americans seemed right for their bold, forthright look at modern life.Why are we drawn to Ashcan School art today (there are so many books and exhibition catalogues about the subject!!)? One reason is that these works were created with such exuberance and sincerity, and they capture moments with freshness, just as they were experienced. They bring to life a bygone time in New York. Some of Henri’s advice in The Art Spirit (1930) to art students conveys what was desired. He said:

A work of art which inspires us comes from no quibbling or uncertain man. It is the manifest of a very positive nature in great enjoyment, and at the very moment the work was done. It is not enough to have thought great things before doing the work. The brush stroke at the moment of contact carries inevitably the exact state of being of the artist at that exact moment into the work, and there it is, to be seen and read by those who can read such signs, and to be read later by the artist himself, with perhaps some surprise, as a revelation of himself. (pp. 16-17)

This makes me want to run out and capture on paper what I see so that I can be surprised later at what I actually saw that I didn’t know I had.

Send on any thoughts or comments to begin a continuing conversation about the Ashcan School. I am also happy to send along recommendations for reading more about this topic.

(See Ashcan School-Part I and Ashcan School-Part II)