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Lot Essay
John Marin captured the energy and dynamism of New York City with an unwavering consistency and commitment unrivaled by his artistic peers. The tempo of the city and its role as a center for Modernist thinking were keys to Marin's immersion in its atmosphere. As a close observer of the shapes, spaces and rhythms of the metropolis, Marin employs his distinct modernist technique of gestural strokes and bold coloring in his celebrated New York oils. In Downtown New York from River, the artist depicts the city in simplified geometric forms that overlap, creating tension within the composition. Without any overt human presence, these man-made forms interlock into a densely packed mass portraying the dominating presence of structures in the city.
Marin reflected on the city and its effects on his artistic practice: "Shall we consider the life of a great city as confined simply to the people and animals on its streets and in its buildings? Are the buildings themselves dead? We have been told somewhere that a work of art is a thing alive. You cannot create a work of art unless the things you behold respond to something within you. Therefore if these buildings move me they too must have life. Thus the whole city is alive; buildings, people, all are alive; and the more they move me, the more I feel them to be alive...I see great forces at work; great movements; the large buildings and the small buildings; the warring of the great and the small; influences of one mass on another greater or smaller mass...While these powers are at work pushing, pulling, sideways, downwards, upwards, I can hear the strife and there is great music being played. And so I try to express graphically what a great city is doing. Within the frames there must be a balance, a controlling of the warring, pushing, pulling forces. This is what I am trying to realize. But we are all human." (as quoted in R.E. Fine, John Marin, Washington D.C., 1990, p. 126)
Marin reflected on the city and its effects on his artistic practice: "Shall we consider the life of a great city as confined simply to the people and animals on its streets and in its buildings? Are the buildings themselves dead? We have been told somewhere that a work of art is a thing alive. You cannot create a work of art unless the things you behold respond to something within you. Therefore if these buildings move me they too must have life. Thus the whole city is alive; buildings, people, all are alive; and the more they move me, the more I feel them to be alive...I see great forces at work; great movements; the large buildings and the small buildings; the warring of the great and the small; influences of one mass on another greater or smaller mass...While these powers are at work pushing, pulling, sideways, downwards, upwards, I can hear the strife and there is great music being played. And so I try to express graphically what a great city is doing. Within the frames there must be a balance, a controlling of the warring, pushing, pulling forces. This is what I am trying to realize. But we are all human." (as quoted in R.E. Fine, John Marin, Washington D.C., 1990, p. 126)