Northshore Magazine

Northshore October 2015

Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.

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128 | OCTOBER 2015 nshoremag.com in-depth LIVE built against Puritan landscape, blue-eyed and rocky." He painted directly from nature, hauling his paint box, canvases, and easel to various sites, rendering moments of shifting light, sometimes creating two or three canvases a day. During his days here, he painted 292 local scenes "worth keeping." Those paintings are thought to be among his finest representational works. In the early 20th century, Gloucester—and in fact the whole country—was on the cusp of change. The Industrial Revolution, turmoil in politics, urbanization, and a world war shifted cultural dynamics not only here but also around the world. In art, America languished in the shadow of Eu- ropean traditions. Walt Whitman decried, "America has yet morally and artistically originated nothing." Yet, in the hearts and minds of a loosely joined group of urban artists out of Philadelphia, and later New York, a new voice was developing— one that spoke of a groundbreaking aesthetic. Unwittingly, the group began a movement referred to as The Ash Can School. Their realist works portrayed everyday (some- times seamy) urban life. Under the guidance of Robert Henri, "The Eight," as they came to be known, led the revolt in American art. Sloan was an important member. Sloan toiled in New York for 10 years, honing his aesthetic and painting style while earning a living as an etcher, newspaper illustra- tor, painter, and art instructor. For a time, he embraced socialism, though his paintings rarely express political themes. An appreciation for the vitality of the lower classes and the ability to see beauty in the mundane kept him grounded. The 1913 Armory Show, a con- troversial, cutting-edge exhibition photographs by Scott Goodwin Cape Ann Museum's special exhibition: John Sloan Gloucester Days runs through November 29, 2015. Below, The sculpture garden includes work by sculptors Robert Amory, Albert Atkins, Ken Hruby, and George Demetrios.

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