Metropolis: New York As Myth, Marketplace, and Magical Land - Hardcover

Charyn, Jerome

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399131337 ISBN 13: 9780399131332

Publisher: Putnam Pub Group, 1986

Synopsis

Using himself as the persona, the author interviews the police commissioner concerning racism and a SoHo dealer on art, invades Brooklyn Mafia dens and a Times Square sex palace, and explores a shelter for the homeless

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

In acid engravings and paintings, Hogarth captured the riotous excesses of middle-class England. His pictures transcend genre painting and make a universal commentary on human folly. But most of his successors recorded the tastes and manners of their times in an uncritical fashion. Examples include the "conversation pieces" and rural idylls of Arthur Devis and John Zoffany. Only infrequently, artists like Gainsborough and Stubbs, in limning the contemporary social scene, stumbled upon the actual. Victorian genre artists breathed some reality into pictures of families ruined by gambling and fallen women. Walter Sickert (18601942), rejecting genteel traditions, uncovered the beauty lurking in commonplace urban scenes. Johnson, a Princeton professor, objectively examines the highs and lows of Britain's socially relevant painting. The more than 200 plates here are marked by sharp local detail, robust characterizations and touches of humor.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Charyn is a New York novelist ( War Cries Over Avenue C ) whose jaunty, vivid style is perfect for evoking present-day New York, which he considers "America at its rawest edge . . . the city as psychopath, energetic, nervous, full of danger, like some hidden heartbeat of the country." His is a strongly autobiographical, subjective, and lyrical view of the city, featuring Ellis Island, Times Square, Jewish crime, Bellevuewhatever has seized this artist's imagination. Of course, there is an insider's chapter on Mayor Ed Koch. In spite of all the grubby places Charyn visits the tone is upbeat and each page is full of verbal fireworks. For public libraries. Priscilla E. Pratt, York Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Putnam Pub Group
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 0399131337
• ISBN 13: 9780399131332
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304