Bethesda Fountain in the past….

…and today

Naturally, much has changed around the Bethesda Terrace area of Central Park in the years since H.L. Witteman snapped the above photo of the Bethesda Fountain. This doesn’t mean that his picture is impossible to recreate, however. As my own photo displays, many of the key focal points of Witteman’s image (the fountain, lake, the Langham etc.) have remained unchanged. Furthermore, the arrangement of the terrace allowed me to stand far enough away so as to compose the picture with the fountain in the center framed in the foreground by the grassy lawn and in the background by the trees and buildings. The influx in flora over the years prevented me from fully rendering the open sky. Also, I realize now that the exact scale of my photo is just slightly off; with the fountain occupying more space in my photo than in the older one. In both, however, the columns and edge of the terrace act as a leading line across the photographs, drawing the viewer to and away from the fountain. Furthermore, the arrangement of the terrace runs diagonally across the picture, leading the viewer’s eye to the vanishing point at the extreme right edge (and out of) the picture.

By Albina Khayrulina & Simmi Kaur.

Then:

Now:

We took a photograph of the Brooklyn Bridge and tried to recreate Hassam’s painting. We can see through technical details that the photo and the painting match. For example, the artist was standing to the right of the walkway in the painting, and we tried to mimic this perspective by using the angles of leading lines of the railing. The left line has a lower angle, while the right line has a steeper angle. Both of these show us that the artist stood slightly to the right and purposely situated the bridge off-center. The actual towers of the bridge are not in the center, but also on the right side of the picture. We also used the vanishing point (located around the staircase in the image) to position our photograph. Another feature that helped us position our photograph are the barely visible second towers of the bridge. We tried to get the towers/arches in the photograph to be about the same size as they are in the painting.
Recreating the exact painting is obviously impossible but this task was a lot more difficult than expected. There are several changes that cause our photograph to look different. The walkway ramp is higher today than when it was in Hassam’s time. This can be seen by the carriages, which are almost level with the pedestrian walkway. Today, the cars are not visible in from that angle. In addition, it is easy to tell that the walkway has been narrowed since Hassam’s time and thus, we weren’t able to completely achieve the same angle, since that would put us on the highway itself. The staircase is gone because of the bicycle lane, and the benches of the left side have been removed. Still, this photograph comes pretty close to replicating Hassam’s painting.

This picture of the A.T. Stewart Mansion was painted by Hassam in the year 1891, more than a decade before it’s demolision was started in 1902. It looks like Hassam was standing on the corner a block over from the mansion because you can see the crosswalk and the corner of the street. The vanshing point is towards the far left center of the picture. You can see that the cars and people get smaller leading up to this point. I probably would have gotten a better view from the crosswalk, but for safety reasons I took it from the corner across the street. I managed to get a similar vanishing point. The site now houses a series of shops.

Childe Hassam was greatly inspired by many aspects of New York City, including the beauty of Central Park. In this painting, made in 1892, Hassam draws the area around the Conservatory Water in Central Park. The painting shows people leisurely walking along the Conservatory Water’s banks, as well as the natural beauty of the surroundings. The second picture shows the same area around the Conservatory Water in 2009. There are many similarities and differences between the two pictures.

Hassam’s original painting shows a path leading away from the Conservatory Water. This path is still there, as shown in the present-day picture. However, the little house that is shown in Hassam’s drawing is no longer standing today. Another similarity that exists between the two photographs is the presence of many trees. Hassam’s original painting shows many trees, which take up most of the area behind the Conservatory Water. This is similar to the 2009 picture, where trees dominate the background.

The vanishing points of the two pictures are different because of the changes made to the area. The vanishing point in Hassam’s drawing is to the right of the red chimney. However, the vanishing point in the present-day picture is to the left of the tree in the center of the photograph. This difference is a result of the Conservatory Water’s banks being shifted, and the path being moved. Another difference lies in the Conservatory Water’s banks. Whereas in Hassam’s painting, there was no place to sit along the water, today the edges of the banks have been raised with concrete to create a place for people to sit, take pictures, or simply relax. A key difference is the sky. In Hassam’s original painting, the sky is simply blue and empty. However, the present-day picture shows high-rise buildings in the air, a sign indicative of the drastic change that New York City has undergone in the 117 years since Hassam originally drew this painting.

Union Square then...

...and now.

I chose show Union Square in its past and present state. I couldn’t get the right angle, but I did the best that I could.

Taking the picture from the 6th floor of a department store obviously gave me a different perspective than that of Hassam’s painting. While the vanishing points of both pictures is in the middle, Hassam’s lies near the top-center while mine lies dead center. You can see rooftops in the painting, which shows that Hassam painted this at a higher elevation level than I was able to achieve.

Now at Union Square, there’s a dog park, playground, tourist center, and varying booths and shops. The Farmers’s Market (also known as the Greenmarket) is also there on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. While Hassam’s Union Square has plenty of grass and open area, today’s Union Square is mostly paved. The pond that resides in the painting is no longer there today. There are also more trees, obscuring the building that we see in the center of Hassam’s painting (which today is now Barnes & Noble). The Empire State Building can be seen in both pictures (though the photograph Empire is bigger, suggesting that Hassam painted from a further viewpoint). And while Hassam’s Union Square has a few people, I’m pretty sure hundreds or even thousands now frequent the area today.

The top picture shows Hassam’s painting of the A. T. Stewart Manision, built in 1869. The mansion once sat on the northwest corner of 34th St. and 5th Ave. and was home to the Manhattan Club from 1890 to 1899. The building was, however, torn down between 1902 and 1904. Today the corner has a Duane Reade pharmacy on the ground level of a skyscraper. It is also just across the street from the Empire State Building.

My photograph is not completely accurate in angle, but in both pictures the vanishing point is off the image to the far left. The lines the sidewalk forms are close and I included a bit of the closer sidewalk, as in the foreground of the painting. I had to fiddle with the angle at which I held my phone as well as the amount of zoom in order to get the photo close to the original. I believe I could have gotten it closer but I would have needed to be in the street where cars were parked. The area has changed drastically from when Hassam painted it, most of the historical buildings being torn down and replaced with large skyscrapers. The area appears just as bustling as in the painting, however, because it is now a tourist hot spot.

Washington Arch, Spring, 1890

Washington Arch, September 16th, 2009

Hassam’s painting of the Arch in Washington Square Park was one of many successful attempts to convey New York City in a light of beauty comparable to that of the European scene, specifically city beauties found in Paris. To start off, Hassam’s vanishing point is located in the right half of the picture, near the bottom of the Arch’s right leg. An important distinction to be made is the difference in framing of the photograph in Hassam’s painting and my photograph. Hassam’s framing is in a portrait position, with a vertically-stretched rectangle, while my camera captured the photo in a landscape position, with a horizontally-stretched rectangle. As a result, the perspective Hassam achieved in his painting is very difficult to capture from street level, the main obstacle being the new road for street cars present in the current day photograph. I went out onto the road to capture Hassam’s vanishing point and perspective, despite cries from disgruntled taxi drivers ( understatement ), to make up for the lack of sidewalk in our present time. The trees in Hassam’s painting have been moved to the right and left sides with the sidewalk for pedestrians. In my photograph, I have also managed to capture the Arch’s statues near the base, which Hassam has very faintly outlined in his picture, with only the base for the statues distinctly visible in his painting. Horse-drawn carriages have been replaced by petroleum-pumping cars, and the people no longer wear top hats and ribbon-bound hats on their heads, but hard and skull caps. Yet, behold, the Arch has stood the test of time and remains standing, despite all the change and evolution around it. It remains as our link to and remembrance of the past.

Although Hassam’s painting of the Brooklyn Bridge and my photo do differ slightly in perspective and angle, they do match in many ways. Both pictures contain the double arch is off to the right, the vanishing point is in about the same place, a group of people walking, and two lamp posts. Hassam may have been standing a little farther back when he painted this, and the time of day was different as well as the season. Also, when Hassam painted the bridge, there were no cables and no white line painted down the center, separating a bike lane and pedestrian lane. Otherwise, the two depictions match fairly well.

Lower Manhattan (Broad and Wall Streets), 1907

Lower Manhattan (Broad and Wall Streets), 2009

While slightly varied in perspective and dimensions, the picture I took matches Hassam’s painting because both are of the same street, featuring as a main landmark the New York Stock Exchange. The vanishing point in both images is somewhere behind the building at the next corner with the columns. In both images the viewer can see not quite three columns on that building in front of the vanishing point. Hassam’s point of view while painting would probably have been up higher, as the painting features mostly the tops of people’s heads, while mine includes their faces. The artist may also have been standing further back. Right now a great deal of construction and scaffolding occupies the place where he probably stood. Sunlight graces the intersection in his painting, as well, creating another difference. His view of the Stock exchange also lacked the classic elegance of September 2009′s Budweiser advertisement.