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| American Art as Reflection of Social Class in the 20th Century
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Twentieth century American art is best understood within the context of the social, political, and cultural events and trends that were occurring throughout the country. The 20th century has seen a departure from an elite centered culture in both history and art. Historians have begun studying the lives of the working classes, women, and minorities in addition to American economics and politics in order to understand the events of the past more fully. Likewise, 20th century art has moved to a greater understanding of the entire American community, leaving behind a tradition of art for and of the elite to an increased acceptance of realistic images of the non-elite and further to accept the contributions of women and minority artists. As an increased diversity of subject matter and artists has become commonplace, art movements have also developed. Twentieth century art is marked by a dialogue between realism and abstraction, beginning with the Impressionists of the 19th century and continuing through Photorealism and Abstract Expressionism. All of these developments, however, took place within the larger context of American society. American politics, economics, and values all had an effect on the development of 20th century art, including the ability of women and minority artists to gain recognition in a traditionally male sphere.
To understand 20th century American art, it is important to start in the last decades of the 19th century. Late 19th century American society consisted of the traditional upper and working classes, but in addition a new middle class was forming as a result of industrialization and professionalization. This middle class found jobs in the management of America's new industries, as well as in newly professionalized fields such as law, medicine, teaching, and social work. The middle and upper classes still controlled American society and culture, while the poor and working class was largely ignored. At this time, Europe was the center of the intellectual art world for Americans. American arts were gaining ground, but young American artists still traveled to Europe for their training and many choose to stay there.
In the last decades of the 19th century, a group of French artists called the Impressionists changed the art world by painting the people around them, their families, friends, and neighbors in a manner unlike genre painting. For the Impressionists the study of color and light, and the effects of paint on the canvas was just as important as the subject matter in painting. Painting the people around them gave the Impressionists more opportunity to spontaneously create. Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) was an expatriate and the only American artist asked to exhibit with the French Impressionists. Cassatt is best known for her paintings of women and children. Sara Wearing Her Bonnet and Coat, 1904, a lithograph, is typical of Cassatt's subject matter.
Mary Cassatt, American, 1844-1926, Sara Wearing Her Bonnet and Coat, c. 1904, transfer lithograph on paper, Gift in memory of Kathryn Booth Anderson '40, 1985.002
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Unlike portraits of the early 19th century, Sara is not formally posed, but appears natural and relaxed without props or a background. The Impressionists marked the beginning of a shift in European art away from the traditional emphasis on content and visual representation and towards art for art's sake, with emphasis on immediacy and freshness of style.
American Impressionism lasted much longer into the 20th century than the movement in Europe did. American artists such as William Singer, Arthur Goodwin, and Helen Turner painted in the Impressionist style into the 1920s, while Europeans were developing new styles. William Singer's Evening Shadows, 1928, depicts dusk in a mountain valley. The sun has retreated from the stream in the foreground of the painting, but the mountains rising in the background are still sunlit. Singer was more interested in depicting the way light reflected off nature, rather than representing a detailed image of the mountains. The American Impressionists, however, were not limited to pastoral landscapes. Arthur Goodwin's Tea Wharf, Boston, 1916, depicts a harbor scene in Boston, Massachusetts. Like Singer's landscape, the city buildings and boats in the harbor are not the main subject of this painting. Instead, Goodwin focuses his attention on the reflection of light in the harbor. The city buildings and boats are included to add context, but Goodwin simplifies the buildings to shapes and colors that direct attention to the water in the center of the painting. Impressionism, therefore, was the first step in directing some American artists away from strict visual representation in their images.
America entered the 20th century as a country on the move towards the city and modern life. The first decades of the 20th century saw waves of European immigrants and African-American Southerners migrating to new and growing northern cities. The process of industrialization created low skill jobs in factories across the North that anyone, including children, could perform. The cities of the 19th century were not prepared to handle the influx of new residents associated with urbanization and affordable housing for new migrants filled and overfilled quickly. Living conditions for the poor and working classes were documented by Jacob Riis' camera in How the Other Half Lives (1892) and in Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle published in 1906. Both books awakened social concern and encouraged reform movements for better living and working conditions for the urban poor.
In response to the increasing urbanization and industrialization of America's cities in the early decades of this century, a group of artists began depicting the reality of urban life on their canvasses. The gap between the rich and poor grew during these early decades of the 20th century and some artists challenged the traditional use of middle and upper class subjects by depicting daily life in city bars and on busy sidewalks, among other places. These images were known for the essence of humanity they depicted and their graphic details of the living conditions of America's urban poor. These details demonstrated the concerns reformists had been working years to alleviate, including cramped living conditions, child labor, and unsanitary conditions. When this art was first exhibited in 1908 in New York City, these artists were considered radical and modern. Their dark canvasses that realistically recorded the details of city living were in stark contrast to the study of light and color of the Impressionists. Critics were quick to call their work the "Ashcan School." The "Ashcan School" had many of the same members as the group of artists exhibiting together as "The Eight" during the 1900s, however, the two groups were not one in the same. "The Eight" refers to the group of artists who first exhibited together in 1908 in defiance of the National Academy. This group sought to paint free of academic restraints in the new modern styles. Some of their members painted urban scenes, and these members gained the reputation of the "Ashcan School." Both groups were part of the modern art movement, both for the choice of subject matter and their methods of depiction.
John Sloan (1871-1951) was a member of "The Eight" and also known as a member of the "Ashcan School." In addition to painting urban realities, John Sloan spent a considerable amount of time in his later career painting the nude figure. Sloan's Nude with Pink Note, 1935, depicts a nude model resting on a couch holding a pink piece of paper. Sloan's image of the woman is realistic, not the idealized image that was the norm of academic painting. Sloan did not turn the everyday woman who was his model into an idealized, classical image of the goddess. The woman's shape is realistic and the concentric lines on her skin demonstrate the mass and sculptural quality Sloan sought to give his subjects. Whether painting the reality of city life or a nude model, Sloan reacted against the canons of academic painting by painting images without idealization or classical origins.
Maurice Prendergast (1859-1924) was a notable exception to the members of "The Eight" also belonging to the "Ashcan School." Prendergast's Salem Harbor,1922, depicts women and children along the coast of Maine, a far cry from the urban realism of the "Ashcan School." Prendergast's watercolor does not exhibit the details of other realists, instead reducing people, trees, and boats to a few colored forms. Although not particularly radical today, Prendergast's decision to depict ordinary people and his use of bright colors and shapes were influenced by the Impressionists and the Fauves, another group of French modernists.
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