Looking back to the Present
Something that lives rent free in my head is "history repeats itself". I always enjoyed history in school and then, studying art history and literature. Over and over and over again I see history repeating itself. These days I especially notice the parallels of our present to those of a hundred years ago (give or take): massive domestic and foreign upheaval, world changing new technologies, the push and pull of nostalgia, as well as the rejection of an idealized fantasy of the past. Robert Henri, Snow in New York , Oil on canvas, 1902. Image taken from The Art Story . Bearing these things in mind, I am drawn back to the artists known as The Eight and the Ashcan School. Artist Robert Henri began a new tradition of painting in the early 1900s and opened a new school. Although the artists of the Ashcan School each had their own style, they were brought together by their approach to subject matter and the influence of their teacher, Henri. Dox Thrash, After the Lynching ,
