Untitled (Night View of Brooklyn Bridge)

Joseph Stella presents the Brooklyn Bridge as a web of wires and electric lights against the night sky. This explosion of lines overwhelms his small canvas, suggesting the awe he likely felt when crossing from his home in Brooklyn to the studios and galleries of Manhattan. Completed in 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge remained in Stella’s day a symbol of modernity, progress, and hope. The painter was fascinated with this wonder of engineering and created both dynamic studies like this work and large formal explorations of the bridge’s complex architectural geometry.

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