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. Continue reading →