How does this artwork elucidate its Background?
Gleizes stated his admiration for the Brooklyn Bridge in the first interview after his arrival in the United States, comparing it to the noblest achievements of European architecture.The Brooklyn Bridge was a key component of the New York landscape for the Ashcan School, though it hadn't held for them the fascination that it did for the generation of modern artists that arrived or returned from Europe during the First World War.Joseph Stella wrote of the Brooklyn Bridge: "Seen for the first time, as a weird metallic Apparition under a metallic sky, out of proportion with the winged lightness of its arch, traced for the conjunction of Worlds… it impressed me as the shrine containing all the efforts of the new civilization of America".Albert Gleizes remarked: "the genius who built the Brooklyn Bridge is to be classed alongside the genius who built Notre Dame de Paris". Supporting Gleizes' claim that the Brooklyn Bridge belongs in the same category as the Notre Dame Cathedral, Marcel Duchamp said America's greatest works of art are its bridges and its plumbing. (Stella and Walter Arensberg accompanied Duchamp to a plumbing supply store in 1917 to purchase the infamous urinal, soon to be entitled Fountain and signed "R.Mutt").
Whereas other proto-modernists such as Henry James, H. G. Wells and Alvin Langdon Coburn pondered the bridge from a distance—contemplating its cultural and industrial aspects—artists like John Marin, Max Weber, Joseph Stella and Gleizes worked directly at the bridge itself, reveling in the personal experience. This is what Alan Trachtenberg called “the classic moment” when the bridge—in front of the eyes—transforms itself from a public icon to “a private event”. The classic moment is not studied or pondered but entirely instant and radically subjective. It is a personal response to modernity of the unique structure, an attempt to “know the bridge from the inside”.Stemming back to his years at the Abbaye de Créteil, the interest in ambitious subjects continued to inspire Albert Gleizes throughout the 1910s: Passy, Bridges of Paris, La Chasse (The Hunt), Harvest Threshing (Le Dépiquage des Moissons), Les Joueurs de football (Football Players). From 1915, Gleizes drew inspiration from the music of jazz, from the skyscrapers of New York, from neon signs, from the hustle and bustle of busy Manhattan streets and avenues such as Broadway, and from the Brooklyn Bridge; expressing the various sensations and vast drama of modern city life in an unprecedented series of works.
During the months of autumn, following his demobilization in 1915, Gleizes married Juliette Roche and moved to New York. There they were met by Carlos Salzedo, Francis Picabia, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, and Jean Crotti (who would eventually marry Suzanne Duchamp). Marcel Duchamp had emigrated to New York several months earlier after being judged physically unfit for his service in the military. Shortly after his arrival, Gleizes, accompanied by Salzedo, frequented jazz clubs in Harlem. With all it had to offer, New York had a strong impact on the artist's production.Gleizes had previously been to New York for the occasion of the Armory Show (which in 1913 introduced European modern art to an American audience), exhibiting his La Femme aux Phlox (Woman with Phlox)’’, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and L'Homme au Balcon, Man on a Balcony (Portrait of Dr. Théo Morinaud)’’, Philadelphia Museum of Art.
In New York Gleizes met Walter Pach (who he knew from Paris), Stuart Davis, Max Weber, Joseph Stella, and participated in a show at Montross Gallery (April 1916)—exhibiting Brooklyn Bridge—with Duchamp, Crotti and Metzinger (who remained in Paris). At this exhibition the group was dubbed 'The Four Musketeers' in the press. The Montross exhibition introduced some of the most avant-garde French art of the time to the New York art scene, causing a sensation and once again forcing American artists to rethink their ideas about art. This exhibitions demonstrated that there existed an even more radical approach in art than that offered by the Futurists and Cubists, who were considered at the time to represent the most extreme forms of art.
After Gleizes returned to Europe, Stella became interested in the Bridge as a motif. In Paris, from 1911 to 1912, Stella had been in contact with the Cubists and Italian Futurists, who admired contemporary concepts of the future, including motion, speed and technological triumphs of humanity over nature. When he return to New York he moved to Brooklyn and there found in the Bridge the perfect vehicle for his Futurist vision, though he was also interested in the structural experiments of the Cubists and the dynamic color of the Fauves.
Henry James Walter Arensberg New York Passy, Bridges of Paris Futurists Albert Gleizes Woman with Phlox avant-garde Les Joueurs de football (Football Players) modern art Walter Pach Football Players Alvin Langdon Coburn Marcel Duchamp Juliette Roche Harvest Threshing Man on a Balcony Abbaye de Créteil Man Ray Jean Crotti Ashcan School La Chasse (The Hunt) Alan Trachtenberg L'Homme au Balcon, Man on a Balcony (Portrait of Dr. Théo Morinaud) Les Joueurs de football John Marin Carlos Salzedo Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Harvest Threshing (Le Dépiquage des Moissons) Fountain H. G. Wells La Femme aux Phlox (Woman with Phlox) Francis Picabia Joseph Stella Brooklyn Bridge Stuart Davis Armory Show Max Weber Suzanne Duchamp Fauves Philadelphia Museum of Art