City Building 1931

Editor: This is "City Building" by Thomas Hart Benton, painted in 1931. It looks like he used oil paints to create this scene of workers constructing, well, a city! There’s a real energy to it, a sense of dynamic movement. How would you interpret this painting? Curator: For me, this work speaks volumes about the glorification of labor during the interwar period. Look at the muscular figures – Benton clearly emphasizes the physicality of work, celebrating the industrial process. Consider the materials: oil paint, applied to depict the gritty reality of construction. What does it suggest to you about the social context in which it was created? Editor: It's interesting that you point out the glorification of labor. It seems very deliberate, almost romantic. But I also see a commentary on the consumption and materials required for such grand construction. All that steel, wood, the sheer manpower...it's overwhelming. Curator: Precisely. Benton isn’t just presenting a scene; he's drawing our attention to the very act of making and building, but also the cost. It pushes against any idealistic view. Do you notice how the artist flattens forms which emphasize surface and flatness, moving away from pictorial illusionism that further pushes against a heroic or illusionist reading of labor and industry. Editor: I see what you mean. It's like he wants us to focus on the tangible reality of the materials themselves, not just the end product. So, by using paint to depict physical labor and city construction, he emphasizes the materiality of work and consumption itself. It's a painting about building, but also about what building *is*. Curator: Exactly. It makes us think about what is valorized during economic prosperity, like physical and manual labour, that might become hidden once economic downturn hits. Editor: This has totally changed how I see the piece. I was initially drawn in by the dynamism of the scene but didn’t think too much about it beyond that. Curator: Hopefully this analysis on materialist lens and critical labor provides a good guide to viewing this piece today!