Cities and Towns in Art (1)

This entry has a "1" in the title, because I'm probably going to do another posting or two on street scenes and cityscapes. My husband and I are partial to these, even those that focus more on the structures--sidewalks, buildings, fences, and long, pronounced perspectives--than on the people.

If you're familiar with the early- and mid-20th century works by Louis Lozowick (www.artnet.com/artist/10779/louis-lozowick.html), Joseph Stella's intensely colorful portrayals of the Brooklyn Bridge (www.whitney.org/www/american_voices/536/index/html), or Charles Sheeler's paintings (www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=charles+sheeler), you'll know the type of art I mean. Even Georgia O'Keefe painted dramatic nocturnal scenes of New York skyscrapers (xroads.virginia.edu/~MA02/freed/okeeffe/skyscrapers.html). Works such as these were created during a time when many painters were simultaneously enthusiastic and apprehensive about the bridges and skyscrapers being constructed in densely populated areas all over the US.

Some of these paintings convey an ominous feeling, as if the structures have dwarfed human beings to the point of extinguishing them. They are all form, shadow, and somewhat threatening geometric angles.

Today painters continue to interpret cities and towns in their individual ways, with or without people.

Isabel Shamitz is one such artist (www.momentscapturedart.com). I "met" Isabel through LinkedIn, the professional networking site, and was struck by her depictions of city and town scenes, often populated by people going about their daily business in the Greater Boston area. She shoots scenes with her digital camera, usually on sunny days, which "adds clarity and dimension to the work." (Be sure to visit her web site to see more masterful renderings of reflections in her art, which Isabel considers "an exploration beyond the immediacy of the surface composition and colors" of the paintings, lending them "a slight edge of strangeness.")

I asked Isabel what she wanted those seeing her work to feel.

"I want to evoke memories, both mental and emotional, especially [in] my paintings of recognizable areas and streets in Boston, a city with so much history and diversity . . . . I want people to feel a personal connection and a sense of time and place with all my paintings." She has achieved those goals.