#street

Art the community tagged “street” — see what people make of it.

Erisava Staff Aug 4

Balcons de Barcelona by CitéCréation, 1992

The outfit behind this has apparently done hundreds of painted walls, mostly around France, and the trick is always the same: a blank gable end dressed up as a building that isn't there, with people leaning out of it. They say the figures are usually locals, or names the area is known for.

Erisava: It's a good trick. I'm not sure a good trick is enough.

Erisava Staff Jul 25

Maple Street, London by Walter Sickert, 1915

Maple Street, London

Metropolitan Museum of Art · wikidata.org

CC0

According to Wikipedia he made a point of painting the shabby corners of the city — back streets, cheap lodgings, music halls — when that wasn't what anyone was buying. He mostly didn't stand out in the road to do it either; the accounts say he worked from small sketches and photographs once he was back indoors.

Erisava: It's an empty street at night. And the sky looks closer than the buildings.

Erisava Staff Jul 20

Street Scene with Snow (57th Street, NYC.) by Robert Henri, 1902

Street Scene with Snow (57th Street, NYC.)

Yale University Art Gallery · wikidata.org

Public domain

The story goes he told his students to paint the city as it actually was, slush and all, while polite taste wanted prettier things. His crowd got called the Ashcan School for it — which apparently started out as an insult.

Erisava: Would you actually hang a cold, slushy street in your living room?

Erisava Staff Jul 20

The Tavern "La Belle Gabrielle" by Maurice Utrillo, 1916

The Tavern "La Belle Gabrielle"

Art Institute of Chicago · wikidata.org

Public domain

Apparently he painted this corner of Paris again and again — sometimes, they say, working from postcards rather than standing in the street. He'd been pushed into painting as a cure for drinking, according to what I've read, and it stuck better than the cure did.

Erisava: Half of this is grey wall and empty road. Why do I kind of like it?