Brooklyn Bridge 1928

Vincent Canadè made this lovely lithograph of the Brooklyn Bridge sometime in the mid-twentieth century. I can almost see him working, sitting somewhere along the waterfront with his sketchpad. The thing about drawing is that it’s about building up tone and texture slowly with all these tiny lines. Canadè captures the scale and grandeur of the bridge by contrasting it against the everyday lives of the people on the boat below. It gives a sense of the bridge as this constant, looming presence in the lives of New Yorkers. The way he has captured light and shadow reminds me of other artists from this period, people like the Precisionists, who were also interested in the geometric forms of modern life. But while they celebrated industry and progress, Canadè gives us something more intimate, a glimpse into a shared urban experience. It’s like he’s saying: "We are here. This is now."