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This is a photograph, most likely a painting of the American Revolution of the late 18th century. You can see the Americans fighting the red coats for their independence. The viewer can infer that there is conflict going on between the two sides, and that they are fighting for a good reason. This image makes me feel relieved because if this had never happened, then who knows where we would be today. This is a big conflict because there is death happening everywhere, some people thought it was right, and others thought it was wrong, but it was necessary for the United States as a country.

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This is a newspaper cover of The 31st President of the United States. Hoover is who is known to be one of the most disliked US president for many reasons. For example, 1/3 of all Americans went homeless when he was president. Of course, he couldn't prevent the Great Depression from happening, but he didn't really do anything to help America recover. He was a hands off president, meaning he just let everything happen while rarely intervening. This is a great example of my theme, controversy, because some people liked him and some people disliked him.

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Time Covers - The 20S - Google Arts & Culture

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TIME cover 11-16-1925 President Herbert Hoover.

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This photograph shows the Democratic Donkey vs the Republican Elephant, a common presidential feud that has been concurring since the 1850's. I see an elephant and donkey. The elephant means courage for fighting in the civil war, and the donkey means to call a democrat a jackass, because people didn't like that a new party was made. These two symbols still stand to this day. This is probably the most controversial thing in the United States because it has almost every citizen split between 2 sides.

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This picture was taken in the 1960's during the new Jim Crow laws, which enforced segregation between the whites and everyone else. As the viewer can infer by the picture, the whites get the nice, high quality water fountain, while the colored must use the very small colored water fountain. Viewing this image is unsettling because it shows how wrong the United States was just 50-60 years ago. The whites thought this was fair, but it obviously wasn't, because the colored had feeling too, therefore being controversial.

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Abraham Lincoln -- George Peter Alexander Healy

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Abraham Lincoln -- George Peter Alexander Healy

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Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States, and was known for being a very controversial figure in the United States. In the art piece, you can see Lincoln sitting on a stool with his legs crossed, missing his famous top hat. Viewing this image makes me think of all of his accomplishments and how successful he was as a president. I know that Abe did a lot as president, some things people disliked, but mostly very supportive. You can tell that people didn't like him considering he was shot in the head as president.

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Today Abraham Lincoln is universally regarded as one of our greatest presidents. But from the start of his administration, Lincoln, guiding the nation in a time of civil war, was beset with criticism from all sides. Some charged him with moral cowardice for initially insisting that an end to slavery was not one of his wartime goals; others accused him of overstepping his constitutional powers; still others blamed him for military reverses in the field. But as Union forces moved toward victory, Lincoln's eloquent articulation of the nation's ideals and his eventual call for an end to slavery gradually invested him with grandeur. Following his assassination in 1865, that grandeur became virtually unassailable.

The original version of this portrait was a template for artist George P. A. Healy's large painting The Peacemakers, depicting Lincoln in consultation with three of his main military advisers at the end of the Civil War. But Healy recognized that this made a fine portrait in its own right and eventually made three replicas, including this one.

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Abraham Lincoln - George Peter Alexander Healy - Google Arts & Culture

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Today Abraham Lincoln is universally regarded as one of our greatest presidents. But from the start of his administration, Lincoln, guiding the nation in a time of civil war, was beset with criticism from all sides.

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Yet another stamp, but it broadly explains how influential MLK Jr was. Some people opposed him, which supports my theme of controversy. People started riots because of his speeches, because they weren't ready for the new reality. MLK Jr. was a public speaker which brought hope to the people of the united states. As you can tell from the background, there is the Washington Monument in DC, with what seems to be thousands of people watching something. The viewer can infer that MLK Jr. is giving a speech in this artwork.

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On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech to some 250,000 supporters in Washington, D.C. He eloquently described his faith in equality, justice, and freedom for all.
CELEBRATE THE CENTURY- 1960s
Reference: Back of stamp

Scott Catalogue USA: 3188a

Copyright United States Postal Service. All rights reserved.

Museum ID: 2000.2020.123

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33c Martin Luther King Jr. stamp - United States Postal Service - Google Arts & Culture

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On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech to some 250,000 supporters in Washington, D.C. He eloquently described his faith in equality, justice, and freedom for all.CELEBRATE THE CENTURY- 1960sReference: Back of stamp Scott Catalogue USA: 3188a Copyright United States Postal Service.

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This was a stamp made on Harriet Tubman by the United States Postal Service. I see a horse carriage with what seems to be slaves in it, with Harriet Tubman in the background. I can feel a sense of accomplishment from viewing this image because Harriet Tubman played a huge part in freedom of slaves. Some background knowledge I have of this is that the USPS made this, and that Harriet Tubman was very influential in the 19th century, and still today. This can relate to my theme because not everybody supported Harriet Tubman, South opposed her methods.

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Harriet Tubman (1820-1913) led hundreds of slaves to freedom along the underground railroad in the years leading up to the Civil War. Born a slave herself, she escaped in 1849 when she heard rumors of her anticipated sale further south. Over the next ten years, she returned south nineteen times to bring other slaves to freedom, including members of her own family. She served the Union Army during the Civil War as a scout and spy.

Harriet Tubman was the first African-American woman to be honored on a U.S. stamp, and the first honoree in the Black Heritage series. Initiated with this stamp in 1978, the USPS continues to issue a stamp featuring a notable Black American every February in conjunction with Black History Month and at other times during the year.

The 13-cent Harriet Tubman commemorative stamp was first available on February 1, 1978, at Washington, D.C.

Scott Catalogue USA: 1744
mint

Copyright United States Postal Service. All rights reserved.

Museum ID: 1980.2493.6245

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13c Harriet Tubman stamp - United States Postal Service - Google Arts & Culture

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Harriet Tubman (1820-1913) led hundreds of slaves to freedom along the underground railroad in the years leading up to the Civil War. Born a slave herself, she escaped in 1849 when she heard rumors of her anticipated sale further south.

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Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson - The Soul of the Soulless city

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Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson - The Soul of the Soulless city

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This painting clearly visualizes emptiness. Everyone has left, and we don't know why. The art makes the viewer feel uneasy because of the loneliness. Nevinson tries to visualize New York in the future after visiting (Painting made in 1920), and clearly he believes it will become empty. This can relate to my theme because there can be multiple different viewpoints on what happened here. For example, did everyone leave, or did a dangerous entity come?

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The skyscrapers and railways of New York epitomised the dynamism of the modern metropolis. This painting, originally titled <wm> New York - an Abstraction, shows Nevinson's enthusiastic response, in which the urgency of the city is matched with a modernist style of painting derived from Futurism. However, Nevinson's work did not receive the success for which he had hoped, and his initial excitement gave way to the disillusion indicated by his revised title.

Details

Title: The Soul of the Soulless City ('New York - an Abstraction')

Creator: Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson

Provenance: Presented by the Patrons of British Art through the Tate Gallery Foundation 1998

Physical Dimensions: 915 x 608 mm

Original Title: The Soul of the Soulless City ('New York - an Abstraction')

Additional Viewing Notes: Nevinson first visited New York in 1919 at the invitation of Frederick Keppel & Co, a gallery and print publisher, where his prints of urban scenes and the First World War (1914-18) were exhibited to considerable acclaim. He was immediately impressed by the city's architecture, declaring to one New York journalist that the city was 'built for me'. During the course of his month long stay he made numerous sketches of the city, some of which were later made up into paintings and prints. New York - an Abstraction was painted in London after Nevinson's return from New York in 1919 and before his next visit in October 1920 for a second exhibition at Frederick Keppel & Co. The poor reception of this exhibition may have accelerated Nevinson's disaffection with the city. His growing embitterment is perhaps reflected by the change of title. Originally exhibited in 1920 at the Bourgeois Galleries, New York, as New York - an Abstraction, it was retitled The Soul of the Soulless City in the Faculty of Arts Exhibition, Grosvenor House, London, in 1925 probably at Nevinson's instigation. The new title may have been a reference to Karl Marx's comment that religion was the 'heart of a heartless world'. The painting depicts an imaginary section of the elevated railway running through Manhattan. The image described by one American critic as 'hard, metallic, unhuman' (quoted in David Cohen 'The Rising City Urban Themes in the Art and Writings of C.R.W.Nevinson', C.R.W.Nevinson The Twentieth Century, p.49), betrays an allegiance to Cubism and Futurism. The narrow chromatic range of mainly brown and grey and the complex facetting of the skyscrapers are closely related to Cubism. While the central motif of a railway line receding dramatically into a cluster of tower blocks epitomises a futurist interest in speed, technology and above all modernity. Though Nevinson repeatedly claimed to have been the first artist to depict the modern beauty of New York's architecture, in fact several artists including the painters Joseph Stella, Edward Hopper and the photographers Alvin Langdon Coburn and Paul Strand had taken it as their subject matter before 1919. The parallels between Coburn's mirror-photographs of New York and Vorticism were so apparent that in 1917 Ezra Pound, the poet, critic and founder member of the Vorticist group, dubbed them 'vortographs'. Among Nevinson's British contemporaries, Alfred Wolmark also painted New York scenes. The modern city had been a staple subject matter for British avant-garde artists before the First World War, but in the aftermath of that conflict the taste for modernity waned. This shift in attitudes was manifested in the visual arts by a 'return to order', that is to say a revival of the classical style and a renewed interest in the countryside and nature as subject matter. Nevinson's work during the 1920s reflected this change. Where the pre-war paintings had been characterised by the angular and dramatic style associated with the machine aesthetic of Futurism, increasingly his postwar works were rendered in a naturalist style. In tandem with this stylistic development, a growing number of Nevinson's paintings were landscapes. When appropriate, however, futurist motifs and subjects were revived, as in The Twentieth Century, 1932-35, his large scale critique of Nazism, Fascism and war. Further reading: C.R.W.Nevinson The Twentieth Century, exhibition catalogue, The Imperial War Museum, London 1999, reproduced as 'Soul of the Soulless City' p.143, pl.85 (colour) C.R.W. Nevinson: Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Prints 1889-1946, exhibition catalogue, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge 1988 Jeremy Lewison 'English Painting and the Metropolis in the Twenties', Jean Clair (ed.), The 1920s: Age of the Metropolis, exhibition catalogue, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal 1991, pp.417-31 Toby Treves

Type: Painting

Rights: Tate

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The Soul of the Soulless City ('New York - an Abstraction') - Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson - Google Arts & Culture

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The skyscrapers and railways of New York epitomised the dynamism of the modern metropolis. This painting, originally titled New York - an Abstraction, ...

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James Montgomery Flagg - Uncle Sam - I am Telling You

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James Montgomery Flagg - Uncle Sam - I am Telling You

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I see a man known as Uncle Sam trying to recruit people for the U.S. Army. I feel like they were trying to force people into the military by making this. Background knowledge I have is that this is propaganda, and that James Montgomery Flagg was known for making artwork based around Uncle Sam. The entire purpose of this art poster is to recruit people for the Army during WW1 and WW2. I think of this art as controversial because back in WW1 and WW2, not everyone was for joining the army, but felt as they were being forced.

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This poster is part of the political and military collections at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. It was designed for specific political purposes, and accordingly it may contain sensitive or offensive imagery specific to its historical function and period.

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I Am Telling You--On June 28th I Expect You to Enlist Inthe Army of War Savers to Back Up My Army of Fighters. W. S. S. Enlistment. - Flagg, James Montgomery, 1877-1960 - Google Arts & Culture

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This poster is part of the political and military collections at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. It was designed for specific political purposes, and accordingly it may contain sensitive or offensive imagery specific to its historical function and period.

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I see a man and what people think is his wife, but is actually his daughter. This relates to my theme because people think he is protesting something because of the holding of a pitchfork. The image is quite unsettling because of their facial expressions, they look upset and/or angry. Like I said, people think that the woman is the mans wife, but is actually supposed to be his daughter. It is called the "American Gothic" because Gothic is the type of architectural style of the house in the background.

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This familiar image was exhibited publicly for the first time at the Art Institute of Chicago, winning a three-hundred-dollar prize and instant fame for Grant Wood. The impetus for the painting came while Wood was visiting the small town of Eldon in his native Iowa. There he spotted a little wood farmhouse, with a single oversized window, made in a style called Carpenter Gothic. "I imagined American Gothic people with their faces stretched out long to go with this American Gothic house," he said. He used his sister and his dentist as models for a farmer and his daughter, dressing them as if they were "tintypes from my old family album." The highly detailed, polished style and the rigid frontality of the two figures were inspired by Flemish Renaissance art, which Wood studied during his travels to Europe between 1920 and 1926. After returning to settle in Iowa, he became increasingly appreciative of midwestern traditions and culture, which he celebrated in works such as this. American Gothic, often understood as a satirical comment on the midwestern character, quickly became one of America's most famous paintings and is now firmly entrenched in the nation's popular culture. Yet Wood intended it to be a positive statement about rural American values, an image of reassurance at a time of great dislocation and disillusionment. The man and woman, in their solid and well-crafted world, with all their strengths and weaknesses, represent survivors.

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American Gothic - Grant Wood (American, 1891-1942) - Google Arts & Culture

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This familiar image was exhibited publicly for the first time at the Art Institute of Chicago, winning a three-hundred-dollar prize and instant fame for Grant Wood. The impetus for the painting came while Wood was visiting the small town of Eldon in his native Iowa.