Joseph Stella Old Brooklyn Bridge

Joseph Stella was born in Muro Lucano, Italy. He studied medicine at first following his older brother Doctor Antonio Stella. He would grow dislike medicine and would become a painter and collagist. He arrived in New York in 1896, 43 years before the Old Brooklyn Bridge painting was completed. He was enrolled briefly in the Art Students League and then in the New York School of Art in 1898.In the following years he would go back and forth between the United States and Europe. He did not make contact with futurists until he reached Paris in 1911. He would go on to see the work of Cézanne, Matisse and the Cubists and other Modernist developments (Irma B. par 2). In 1918, after being encouraged by New York galleries and patrons, he would start
He captures the height of the bridge and makes it dramatic with combined views of "radiating cables, stone masonry, cityscapes, and night sky"(The Brooklyn Bridge: Variation on an Old Theme). The canvas is almost 6 feet tall, with Gothic style evoking medieval churches. The painting is based off the Brooklyn bridge in New York. What was happening politically, socially, personally? The painting was started after World War 1, during the Great Depression, and toward the end of World War 2. Socially The Great Depression (1929-39), destroyed the American people and the government wasn't functioning the way it should've been. Several of his works reflected revival of interest in Giotto led by Carlo Carrà and heralded in his earlier works (Irma B par 5). He was in awe of the Brooklyn bridge in 1896, when he saw it for the first time. This led him to want paint it. Joseph Stella's goal was to create a "twentieth-century symbol of divinity, the quintessence of modern life and the Machine Age"(The Brooklyn Bridge: Variation on an Old Theme).
The Brooklyn Bridge: Variation on an Old Theme, was about Stella's obsession and reoccurring paintings of the Brooklyn bridge. To him, the bridge was the symbol of the modern America, a step forward in history. Joseph Stella’s
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