A Little New York City in Winona
It was a snowy Tuesday afternoon in Winona when I went to go visit the Minnesota Marine Art Museum. When I was driving there, I was thinking to myself how secluded it is to the rest of the little town. It was past the railroad tracks and alongside the river, hidden within a vast number of trees. As I made my way inside, I was happy to see how open and how light it was in there. The people there were very welcoming and friendly as I entered. When I was walking around, I felt very peaceful. It was relaxing to walk around and to simply just look at the art work on the walls. Unfortunately, not all the exhibits were open to the public yet, but I had noticed that the ones that were open, were paintings of The Boston Tea Party. I found a little strip on the wall that were all different kinds of art.
The one that caught my eye was Charles Sheeler’s drawing, View of Central Park. He used black and gray conte crayon for this piece which Sheeler thought was the closest thing and most realistic to a photograph. Sheeler said, “The materials were made to see how much exactitude I could attain. With conte, individual, marks could readily be buried so that it was easy to achieve a seamless, stroke less texture.” When I looked at the drawing, I could see every single detail. The people on the streets had shadows, you could see every tree branch perfectly clear, and you could even see the windows on the buildings. It looked as though this was drawn during the early winter months. There was no snow, but the trees don’t have any leaves on them and the people are wearing long coats and hats. I had noticed even the smallest little detail of the transitions between the sidewalk and road, and the water to the lawn are subtlety real looking.
Charles Sheeler is an American painter and commercial photographer. He is recognized as one of the founders of American modernism, developing a style of painting known as Precisionism, a term that emphasized the linear precision he employed in his depictions. He became one of the master photographers of the twentieth century. Sheeler was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and he attended the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art and then the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied under William Merritt Chase. He found early success as a painter and exhibited at the Macbeth Gallery in 1908. He is most known and has done the most work in modern art and photography which I looked into a little more. All his work is very simple but it holds a deeper meaning within in it, and I can see that Sheeler was trying to connect to the audience in some sort of personal way.
The drawing reminded me of the time that I went to New York my senior year of high school in November. My family and I spent all day walking around Times Square and Central Park. The city was extremely lively. There were so many people walking around, shopping, and taking pictures. But, I noticed in the drawing that it doesn’t look so lively as it did when I had experienced it. There are only a few people walking around in Central Park in Sheeler’s drawing. As I am thinking about those people walking around the park, I am remembering myself walking on the same sidewalk, probably around the same time of year. I could feel and smell the brisk air hitting my face. As my cheeks got red from the wind, I could even smell the fresh powderd snow as I breathed in. I remember how much colder it was in the park compared to Times Square. In the heart of the city, it was muchwarmer since the buildings were blocking out the wind for the most part. But when we walked over to Central Park, it was an immediate temperature change. I remember needing to grab my hat and mittens out of my bag to put them on after leaving the city.
I remember walking across that same bridge from Sheeler’s drawing and sitting on a dampened bench by the pond that is half frozen over. I saw a few birds walking across the shallow park of the lake, where it is completely frozen. I looked out to the skyscrapers that towered over the hustle and bustle of the city and I imagined all the people that were all busy doing different things with their lives, how much traffic there was, and I compared it to where I was sitting on that bench. There were very few people in the area that we were in, it felt so peaceful there as compared to the chaotic and eye opening city. As I sat there, I felt like me and my family were the only people in the world. It was quiet, serene, and just a gratifying place to think. I can see why Charles Sheeler drew this area of the park. I felt as if I could sit there all day doing nothing accept for watching the little waves and looking at what was surrounding me.
This feeling of serene peacefulness is the same feeling I get when I am at the top of Garvin Heights in Winona, Minnesota. I recently went up to Garvin Heights and the winter air was very similar to that of New York City, a fresh and cold winter breeze. When I am up there, I also feel as though I am the only person in the world. They both have a similar seclusion and ominous feel to it. They’re both looking out to onto something bigger than itself. Garvin Heights looks out to the rest of the small and familiar town of Winona, and the grassy area by the water looks out to the Big Apple. There are endless amounts of similarities between my two favorite places, and if I closed my eyes and tried to guess where I was; Central Park or Garvin Heights, I know that I wouldn’t be able to guess.
There were so many different works of art that I looked at that Tuesday afternoon, and this was the only one that I had a connection with. I looked at many different oil paintings and sculptures and in the end, I am glad I chose this drawing by Charles Sheeler. I have learned so much about him in the last week and got to look at his other works of art that he has created. The amount of details he can put into a small detail, like a tree stump, is so fascinating and crazy to think about. I have been trying to understand how someone could have eyes that can see those small and usually over looked details and then have the artistic skills and ability that can be applied onto his or her canvas. I found his work and the entire concept of his artwork and his mind so fascinating and learned a lot from him.
