Park Bench At Night Analysis

A careful reading of these people reveals two distinct types, plainly dressed figures, presumably immigrants, and men, women and children in more refined summer attire. The former are observed in the three figures standing at the far left of this picture, the man without a jacket, his suspenders showing, the woman in red shawl and maroon skirt holding a baby in her arms. This same type is seen in the family grouping in the center foreground where the bare headed man in open-collar shirt turns toward his wife, she wearing a plain dress, apron and with hair combed into a bun. It is also glimpsed at the far right in the two dark-haired women holding babes in their arms. All three groups convey a sense of stasis, as if stopped or paused amid
48] that depicts denizens of the lower East Side fitfully trying to sleep outdoors to escape the heat. Myers shows a young man prostrate on a bench in the upper left of the picture. Beside him at the right sits a woman who holds a child by the hand as she nods her head in exhaustion. A second woman with long reddish blond hair undone and streaming down her shoulders sits on the ground at the lower right of the picture as a small girl cuddles up next to her while other children lie on the grass at the lower left. But as with A North River Recreation Pier, this picture has been artfully composed for desired effect in order to convey the look and feel of a sweltering New York City summer evening. The sleeping man is based on a daytime sketch Myers made around 1907 of a lone individual sprawled out on a bench, napping and titled On the Bench. The models for the woman with flowing hair and child sleeping beside her are most probably taken from drawings the artist would soon do of his wife and young child which must date no earlier than November 1905 in the first instance, as Myers and Ethel were married in late October 1905. The female figure with red hair in Park Bench at Night closely resembles that of Ethel as seen in a pastel portrait of her dated to 1913 where her long red hair is shown cascading about her shoulders. The sleeping girl nestled close to the woman in the pastel matches a
Gaily a Sicilian melody is ground out by the organ; the art of music is ground out for the hearts of people at their every-day tasks, for the children who are always responsive to this colorful, tuneful fest. In this way along the curbstones of New York, the children are brought up on the operas of Verdi, as well as on the popular tunes they can dance to. In their grouping they compose a joyful picture, the little folk who will one day be seen in the gallery of the Metropolitan Opera House, listening to great singers in the operas to which the hand organ introduced