Harvey Wiley Corbett Style Cities of Tomorrow

Architect Harvey Wiley Corbett (1873-1954) didn't invent the concept of multi-level separation of vehicle and pedestrian traffic, but he did much to popularize the concept in the early decades of the twentieth century. His Wikipedia entry is here, and a discussion of his city planning ideas is here.

The idea of separating rail, street vehicle and pedestrian traffic has both rational and idealistic appeal, and the twentieth century up to around 1940 was a time when bold concepts of the future were entertained and even given serious consideration. Offhand, I can't think of any actual large-scale implementation of those ideas, because the cost and scale would have been immense. A small-scale implementation was in the General Motors pavilion at the 1939-40 New York Worlds Fair (the link has a photo).

Logic and idealism aside, I find it hard to image a real-world city of that kind. I'm not sure that drivers would have enjoyed being channeled between stark building walls or, in some cases, roaring along hundreds of feet above ground level. And pedestrians would be breathing exhaust fumes rising from all those cars, trucks and busses running below.

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La Rue Future - Eugène Hénard - 1910
A French concept of multi-level traffic.

King's View - 1911
This is a well-known early example of a utopian future New York City.

City of future by Corbett - 1913
Internet sources say this drawing was based on Corbett's thinking, but I can't confirm that he was at it as early as 1913.

Corbett for Regional Plan Association - Hugh Ferriss, delineator - 1923-24
This is a modest version of a multi-level traffic city.

Corbett for Popular Science Monthly - Frank R. Paul, delineator - 1925
Here Corbett proposes a city with everything packed into skyscrapers including schools, playgrounds and (scary thought!) airfields.

Concept by Francisco Mujica - 1929-30
A future city in the Corbett idiom.

From "The Metropolis of Tomorrow" by Hugh Ferriss
This image shows traffic pulsing along some 30 or 40 floors above ground level. What always intrigued me about this rendering is the party taking place on the terrace of the building to the right.

Here Ferriss shows multiple raised roadways along with a Corbett-style pedestrian level near the ground.  Those airplanes cruising between the skyscrapers make me nervous, but apparently didn't bother Ferriss.

No high-level trafficways here. Pretty much standard Corbett in this Ferriss drawing.

Roaring Twenties Illustrations

For reasons I don't really understand, and therefore can't explain, I've been fascinated by the 1920s for most of my life. So when I surf the Internet and stumble across interesting paintings or illustrations depicting that era, I'll copy them on the hard drive of my desktop computer.

Today's post presents some illustrations I've collected. They were done by artists who are not now well known here in America. I might feature one or more another time, but for now will simply display the images without any supporting information.

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This nice 1926 illustration is signed by a monogram that looks like the initials "BT," though I might be misinterpreting. Can anyone out there help identify the artist/

By Ruth Eastman

By Jacques Leclerc - 1926

By Fabius Lorenzi - 1926

By Annie Offterdinger in "Jugend" - 1923

By Paul Reith in "Jugend"

I don't know who the artist for this was. It's possible the image was cropped from something larger. And it's possible, because it's context-free, that it was created more recently than the 20s.

By Vald'Es in "La Vie Parisienne"

By Wilton Williams in "The Bystander" - 12 August 1925

Terence Cuneo's Railroad Paintings

I was never a railroad buff. Perhaps should have been, given that my grandfather and uncle on my father's side were railroad men. Maybe that is why, when I think of Terence Cuneo (1907-1996), a famous British illustrator and painter in his day, what comes to mind are his wartime, aircraft and automobile works rather than the railway paintings that seem to be what he is best remembered for. That memory was manifested in a statue of him placed in London's Waterloo Station a few years ago.

No doubt some -- or even many -- readers are train fans. So with that in mind, I'm presenting examples of Cuneo's railway art. Some are simply portraits of famous locomotives, other works deal with various aspects of train travel.

Information on Cuneo can be found on his Wikipedia entry, this post on Lines and Colors blog, and his daughter's comments here.

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Flying Scotsman - 1984

Golden Arrow - 1984

Royal Scot - 1984
Some portraits of famous locomotives of times past.

Clapham Junction - 1961

Giants Refreshed: Pacifica in the Doncaster Locomotive Works - 1947

The Day Begins - 1946

Bon Voyage: Joining Steam Ships at Calais - 1952

Waterloo Station - 1967
This is a huge painting that can be seen at the National Railway Museum in York, England.

Eric Sloane: Illustrator of Rural America

Eric Sloane, born Everard Jean Hinrichs (1905-1985) was a prolific and popular illustrator and writer of books dealing with rural life, largely in New England and the northeastern United States. I was well aware of his publications when I lived in Upstate New York and he was still active.

His Wikipedia entry explains why he used a pseudonym to launch his career. Some other sites with biographical information regarding Sloane are here and here.

Sloane's illustrations are rather tightly drawn or painted, probably because he thought it necessary to document how the components of the structures he was depicting were assembled. He was more lyrical when it came to the buildings' settings -- particularly skies and other atmospherics.

Sloane spent time in Taos, New Mexico as well as in the Northeast, but the images presented below deal with the latter, because that region was his main focus.

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Page from one of his books illustrating mid-1800s construction methods

View of an abandoned barn

"End of Summer"

"Late Summer"

"February Morning"

"Skating by the Bridge"

"Autumn in New England"

"Autumn Clouds"

Peter Ellenshaw Matte Art

Peter Ellenshaw (1913-2007) is considered a major master of the specialized art of matte painting. A left-handed artist, he was born in England and worked in the matte trade there until he was 40, when he moved to the United States and spent much of his later career at Disney.

Ellenshaw's brief Wikipedia entry is here. The Ellenshaw family website is here (Peter wasn't the only Ellenshaw matte artist). A good source for information about matte art is "NZ Pete," whose site is here; I grabbed several of the images below from Pete.

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Loch Brin, County Kerry
I don't know if this painting was done for Ellenshaw's personal enjoyment or whether it was related to a movie project. In either case, it shows him as a landscape artist.

"Island at the Top of the World" - concept art - 1974
Besides mattes, Ellenshaw was sometimes involved with concept art for film projects.

"Mary Poppins" - London panorama composite - 1964
"Mary Poppins" was a major project for Ellenshaw. Being an Englishman, creating a London panorama was probably easier than it might have been for an American.

"Mary Poppins" - St. Paul's neighborhood - 1964

"Spartacus" - composite of Roman Forum - 1960
Live action was located where the crowds are seen; the rest was largely or entirely painted.

"Spartacus" - details of Forum matte - 1960
The black area at the bottom of the upper detail image is part of the area reserved for live action. Note how freely Ellenshaw painted some of the indidental buildings.

"The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin" - 1967
Disney called upon Ellenshaw to paint clusters of sailing ship masts on more than one occasion.

James Montgomery Flagg, Illustrator

James Montgomery Flagg (1877-1960) was one of America's most popular illustrators from early in the twentieth century through the 1930s, and to a lesser extent beyond, as his sketchy style fell out of synch with illustration fashion.

A brief Wikipedia biography is here, but more useful sources are here (for details) and here, where you can scroll to view examples of his work.

I am ambivalent regarding Flagg's art. That might be because it's a little too loose and too stylized for me. Let me elaborate. The looseness could drift towards a lack of control. As for stylization, his faces sometimes came off more Flagg-like than how peoples actually appeared. I'll point out examples below. On the other hand, he was quite capable of "nailing it," and I'll point that out too.

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Army recruiting poster - 1917
This is by far Flagg's most famous work: iconic to this day.

Illustration for Judge magazine cover, 31 March 1917
Flagg could paint in oils, but that was done mostly when he wasn't illustrating.

Pen and ink illustration
Much of Flagg's illustration work was for magazine interiors, rather than covers. Before the 1920s, he often used pen-and-ink, as did many other illustrators at that time. (This illustration seems to be from the 30s, however, so he continued to use a pen when he could get away with it.)

Wash or watercolor illustration - 1930s
By the 1920s and 30s, he had largely switched to water media. The girl is nicely done, but the Rolls-Royce in the background is far too sketchily done (inaccurately drawn) to suit me.

In Liberty Magazine - 27 October 1934
But here Flagg shines. Not the whole illustration, but with the seated women. Especially the expression on her face.

Sketch of actress Jean Harlow
This is an example of Flagg-style taking over bits of portraiture. Yes, it looks like Harlow. And yes, there's no mistaking who drew her.

"Lost Horizon" poster - 1937
More Flagg intrusion, especially his treatment of the subjects' noses and the general sketchiness that detracts from what many people expect from a movie poster. Flagg's treatment of Ronald Colman's right shoulder is just plain wrong.

The Test of Time: PoMo vs. Velvet Elvis

Just an idle thought, here. Nothing profound, as usual. I was thinking about something I wrote about in my e-book Art Adrift, and this odd idea popped into my head. Let me explain it.

An Art Adrift contention is that much modern and probably even more postmodern art lacks staying power. That's because, especially for the postmodern case, subject matter and presentation fashions are too rooted in the current scene, and universals of humanity tend to be ignored. Ironic takes on cultural references replace emotions such as joy, sorrow, wistfulness and such. Centuries, or even decades from now, how many viewers of paintings will have any idea what such paintings are about, especially if images are considerably distorted from everyday reality? We can relate to paintings by Rembrandt, but will folks 400 years from now (to use a similar time scale) be able to relate to one of Willem DeKooning's messy paintings of women?

Now for my (insightful? crazy? silly?) thought. A couple of hundred years from now, would a painting of Elvis Presley on black velvet be better appreciated than postmodern paintings of certain types? Consider the following:

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Two Elvis Presley paintings on black velvet
I found these images near the top of a Google seach.

"And Then And Then And Then And Then And Then" - by Takashi Murakami

"Postmodern Sisyphus" by Ana Maria Edulescu

Political portrait of Obama by Samoa

Clearly Elvis is a 20th century cultural icon / artifact / whatever. Few in the distant future are likely to know about him. But he is a fellow human, and a viewer of even an on-velvet Elvis might well be interested in viewing it for its human aspects. The Murakami painting might be recognized as some kind of cartoon, and the painting of a man wearing a hat could well be dismissed as not interesting or informative. As for the artist Samoa's painting showing Barack Obama, it is highly likely that it will simply be a puzzlement, its (poorly drawn) subject and accompanying iconography without meaning.

To be clear: I don't contend that Elvis paintings are or will be necessarily considered great art; but I suggest they'll be easier to relate to than much postmodernism.