Category: Historical Perspective

My picture shows some similarities but also some differences from Hassam’s painting. My picture has a similar background of this part f the Brooklyn Bridge. Both images show a cloudy background. They both lack the ability to see a blue sky. However Hassam’s cloudiness is is different because of the winter setting. Also my picture is different because it shows the bridge in a more peaceful setting with no people while Hassam’s painting shows it as busy, possibly during rush hour where people are commuting to or from work or home. I haven’t been to the Brooklyn Bridge in quite a while and while I was there, I didn’t pay much attention to it. This assignment made me think about it in a different way especially since i now had Hassam’s painting to further give me a sense of interest. This makes me think about it more as art and not just a way of transportation. I now realize that it shows a great deal of architectural technique and creativity and is not just a simple bland bridge.

Original:

Replicated:

This is a photograph from Len Jenshel’s Gantry Plaza State Park collection, which can be seen on display at the Museum of the City of New York. This photograph is interesting due to Jenshel’s use of focal points. In essence, a focal point would be described as what the photographer essentially wants the viewer to concentrate on when he/she views the particular photo. The obvious focal point in this photograph would be the large steel support rod, which is bolted to the ground. What makes this interesting is how this focal point is achieved. Rather than focusing on the given target, causing the surroundings to blur, Jenshel only employs centering when establishing the support rod as a focal point; this implies that he also wants to draw the viewer’s attention to the surroundings, which in this case, would be the city skyline. This photograph would thus most likely represent the strong foundation of New York City as a whole. This is due to the strong focus on the support rod, which is attached to platform which appears to be directly below the city from the photographer’s perspective, making it seem as though the support rod is “holding up” the city. It should also be noted that this photograph was taken only a few months after September 11^th, 2001, a horrible event which truly brought New Yorkers together, demonstrating the strength of the foundations of the city in terms of its people.

In comparison to Jenshel’s photograph, my photograph has a vanishing point which is roughly the same, which would be near the actual horizon at the city skyline. In both the photographs, an interesting note would be directed towards the parallel wooden boards that compose the floor. From a painter’s perspective, even though these boards are parallel, they are not perpendicular to the actual plane of view, meaning they must converge at a point which is on the horizon line. If you were to elongate these lines in the photograph, you would notice that they converge at a point on the horizon line outside of the photograph.

The obvious difference between both photographs would be the lighting. Even though the skyline is only experiencing a sunset, the luminosity of Jenshel’s photograph far surpasses that of mine, with both the skyline and steel support rod seeming to radiate more. Jenshel’s camera most likely had a different setting in terms of white balance in order to account for this. Also, the steel support rod in Jenshel’s picture is much more aligned and straight, whereas the support rod in mine is slightly bent, most likely due to an unsteady hand. It should also be noted that more light bulbs were lit on the house-like structure in Jenshel’s photograph than on my photograph.

Another note that can also be made is the reflection of the skyline upon the river. After seeing that I was unable to achieve this effect, I thought perhaps that it was still too bright outside in order to visibly see the reflection. After waiting an hour and taking another photograph, it can be seen that the darkness of the sky still did not achieve this reflection:

Thus, Jenshel’s camera could have been at a critical angle, such that this angle allowed the light rays to “bounce off” the water and be seen. But because my photograph is almost at the same angle, this is most likely not the case. Jenshel’s camera must have been set to a high ISO speed, allowing the camera to have a dramatically increased gain of light from any source. This would allow the camera to detect the weak source of light emitted from the river of the city skyline which would not normally be seen. This setting would also account for the light variability discussed earlier. ISO speed adjustment, however, is unfortunately not a picture setting for my camera. Although Jenshel’s photograph may seem simplistic, it employs numerous photographic techniques and is astounding to observe.

This is the northwest corner of the intersection between Greene Street and Washington place. Here, on an afternoon in 1911, 146 immigrants died in the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire.  Years later, in 1944, Victor Joseph Gatto came here to paint a tribute to the lives lost to negligence. Today, I came here to create a tribute to Gatto.

Now dominated by NYU buildings, street signs, and college students, the northwest corner is difficult to pinpoint; in the painting, it is dominated by horse-drawn carriages and men in top hats. Where there is smoke in the painting, there is sky in the photo (top right). My photo shows too much of the street and not enough of the building on the right. However, I found it impossible to incorporate much of that building at all. It must have been rebuilt further to the right, possibly to widen the street that is leading to the vanishing point.

Gatto used the fire as the vanishing point,, and it was therefore the last part of the painting that my eye saw. Perhaps he was pointing out the lack of attention that had been paid to the factory and its abused workers. Even when it was on fire, it wasn’t as important as the buildings around it.

Hassam’s Brooklyn Bridge in winter, with very minimal background, likely because of the architectural underdevelopment at the time. The vanishing point is in the distance of the bridge’s towers, as perspective is leading the eye in that direction. A major change between Hassam’s picture and modern day is the presence of benches in his contemporary Brooklyn Bridge.

This picture recaptures Hassam’s image of New York’s Brooklyn Bridge. The vanishing point is the second tower of the Brooklyn Bridge in the distance, visible behind the first tower, like in Hassam’s original. The overall environment of the photograph is sunnier than the painting, and obviously more detailed. It is clear that my picture is more modern simply because of the development in the background. It is clear that the world around the Brooklyn Bridge has changed, though the bridge is highly similar.

By Albina Khayrulina & Simmi Kaur.

Then:

Now:

We took a photograph of the Brooklyn Bridge and tried to recreate Hassam’s painting. We can see through technical details that the photo and the painting match. For example, the artist was standing to the right of the walkway in the painting, and we tried to mimic this perspective by using the angles of leading lines of the railing. The left line has a lower angle, while the right line has a steeper angle. Both of these show us that the artist stood slightly to the right and purposely situated the bridge off-center. The actual towers of the bridge are not in the center, but also on the right side of the picture. We also used the vanishing point (located around the staircase in the image) to position our photograph. Another feature that helped us position our photograph are the barely visible second towers of the bridge. We tried to get the towers/arches in the photograph to be about the same size as they are in the painting.
Recreating the exact painting is obviously impossible but this task was a lot more difficult than expected. There are several changes that cause our photograph to look different. The walkway ramp is higher today than when it was in Hassam’s time. This can be seen by the carriages, which are almost level with the pedestrian walkway. Today, the cars are not visible in from that angle. In addition, it is easy to tell that the walkway has been narrowed since Hassam’s time and thus, we weren’t able to completely achieve the same angle, since that would put us on the highway itself. The staircase is gone because of the bicycle lane, and the benches of the left side have been removed. Still, this photograph comes pretty close to replicating Hassam’s painting.

Childe Hassam was greatly inspired by many aspects of New York City, including the beauty of Central Park. In this painting, made in 1892, Hassam draws the area around the Conservatory Water in Central Park. The painting shows people leisurely walking along the Conservatory Water’s banks, as well as the natural beauty of the surroundings. The second picture shows the same area around the Conservatory Water in 2009. There are many similarities and differences between the two pictures.

Hassam’s original painting shows a path leading away from the Conservatory Water. This path is still there, as shown in the present-day picture. However, the little house that is shown in Hassam’s drawing is no longer standing today. Another similarity that exists between the two photographs is the presence of many trees. Hassam’s original painting shows many trees, which take up most of the area behind the Conservatory Water. This is similar to the 2009 picture, where trees dominate the background.

The vanishing points of the two pictures are different because of the changes made to the area. The vanishing point in Hassam’s drawing is to the right of the red chimney. However, the vanishing point in the present-day picture is to the left of the tree in the center of the photograph. This difference is a result of the Conservatory Water’s banks being shifted, and the path being moved. Another difference lies in the Conservatory Water’s banks. Whereas in Hassam’s painting, there was no place to sit along the water, today the edges of the banks have been raised with concrete to create a place for people to sit, take pictures, or simply relax. A key difference is the sky. In Hassam’s original painting, the sky is simply blue and empty. However, the present-day picture shows high-rise buildings in the air, a sign indicative of the drastic change that New York City has undergone in the 117 years since Hassam originally drew this painting.

I chose show Union Square in its past and present state. I couldn’t get the right angle, but I did the best that I could.

Taking the picture from the 6th floor of a department store obviously gave me a different perspective than that of Hassam’s painting. While the vanishing points of both pictures is in the middle, Hassam’s lies near the top-center while mine lies dead center. You can see rooftops in the painting, which shows that Hassam painted this at a higher elevation level than I was able to achieve.

Now at Union Square, there’s a dog park, playground, tourist center, and varying booths and shops. The Farmers’s Market (also known as the Greenmarket) is also there on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. While Hassam’s Union Square has plenty of grass and open area, today’s Union Square is mostly paved. The pond that resides in the painting is no longer there today. There are also more trees, obscuring the building that we see in the center of Hassam’s painting (which today is now Barnes & Noble). The Empire State Building can be seen in both pictures (though the photograph Empire is bigger, suggesting that Hassam painted from a further viewpoint). And while Hassam’s Union Square has a few people, I’m pretty sure hundreds or even thousands now frequent the area today.

The top picture shows Hassam’s painting of the A. T. Stewart Manision, built in 1869. The mansion once sat on the northwest corner of 34th St. and 5th Ave. and was home to the Manhattan Club from 1890 to 1899. The building was, however, torn down between 1902 and 1904. Today the corner has a Duane Reade pharmacy on the ground level of a skyscraper. It is also just across the street from the Empire State Building.

My photograph is not completely accurate in angle, but in both pictures the vanishing point is off the image to the far left. The lines the sidewalk forms are close and I included a bit of the closer sidewalk, as in the foreground of the painting. I had to fiddle with the angle at which I held my phone as well as the amount of zoom in order to get the photo close to the original. I believe I could have gotten it closer but I would have needed to be in the street where cars were parked. The area has changed drastically from when Hassam painted it, most of the historical buildings being torn down and replaced with large skyscrapers. The area appears just as bustling as in the painting, however, because it is now a tourist hot spot.