Battle of lights, Coney Island, Mardi gras

Stella, Joseph (1877-1946)


Item type:
painting
Date of creation:
1913-1914
Height:
195.6 cm  (77 in.)
Width:
215.3 cm  (84 3/4 in.)
framed: 200.3 × 220 × 5.9 cm (78 7/8 × 86 5/8 × 2 5/16 in.)
Technique / Medium:
oil on canvas

Description

Music and dance representations abound by implication in this 20th century abstract work. Description from museum website:
The Italian-born Joseph Stella wrote that Coney Island presented the “most intense arabesque … [of the] surging crowd and the revolving machines generating … violent, dangerous pleasures.” This cacophony of electric lights, gyrating dancers, and radiating steel beams of the Ferris wheel and roller coasters was his first American subject. Fragments of honky-tonk signs make reference to the resort’s popular attractions, such as Steeplechase Park and Feltman’s restaurant, where the hotdog was invented. The letters C-O-M allude to the commedia dell’arte, the European equivalent of secular Mardi Gras.

Iconclass

43A1224
Shrove Tuesday, 'Mardi gras' ~ non-liturgical celebrations of carnival
43A1224(+1)
Shrove Tuesday, 'Mardi gras' ~ non-liturgical celebrations of carnival + festive decoration ~ festive activities
43A1224(+3)
Shrove Tuesday, 'Mardi gras' ~ non-liturgical celebrations of carnival + music and song ~ festive activities
43A1224(+4)
Shrove Tuesday, 'Mardi gras' ~ non-liturgical celebrations of carnival + dancing ~ festive activities
48C8543
'commedia dell'arte'

RIdIM images


Image URLs

image link 1

Bibliographic references

Bohan, Ruth L., et al. The Société Anonyme: Modernism for America, ed. Jennifer Gross (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2006) 26, fig. 13.


Miller, Angela, et al. American encounters: Art, history, and cultural identity (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2008) 460, fig. 14.13.


McCarthy, Laurette E. The paintings of Walter Pach (New York: Francis M. Naumann, 2011) 14, fig. 7.


Frank, Robin Jaffee. "Coney Island Baby", Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin (2015) 118, fig. 1.

RIdIM record id

6213