Stone and Steel: Paintings & Writings Celebrating the Bridges of New York City - Hardcover

Bascove, Bascove

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1567920810 ISBN 13: 9781567920819

Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher, 1998

Synopsis

"All bridges, if they are well built, have their own beauty. They recall the passageway that is perhaps the most enduring symbol of life. They speak of the journey across, and they mark the limits within which we must live. At the same time, they are something given to us by others, on which we cross. For we never cross entirely naked and alone, and we always rest on some base of human ingenuitiy provided by others." -Alfred Kazin
Nothing is more sacred or central to the iconography of New York City than its bridges. For countless artists, writers and poets, these enduring structures have provided not only a link from the city to the outside world, but a means by which the great metropolis was introduced. Bridges reflect the spirit of their age; and the bridges of Manhattan reflect the city's pride in itself and its confidence in the future (why else build an edifice like the Brooklyn Bridge?)
This lovely book is a celebration of the city's bridges, their architects and designers, their builders and advocates. Readers will find a dazzling array of prose and poetry, from the classics by Hart Crane and William Carlos Williams, to lesser known, but no less resonant, work.
Bascove's fourteen resplendent paintings form the cornerstone of the book. Their color and form not only show the structures of bones, but also bring the viewer into contact with them. Bascove possesses one great talent: her ability to make the monumental intimate and the intimate monumental. This is not a book of architectural paintings, but a book of art - graced by some of the best writing of the past two centuries.

About this title

From the Publisher

Nothing is more sacred or central to the iconography of New York City than its bridges. For countless artists, writers and poets, these enduring structures have provided not only a link from the city to the outside world, but a means by which the great metropolis was introduced. Bridges reflect the spirit of their age; and the bridges of Manhattan reflect the city's pride in itself and its confidence in the future (why else build an edifice like the Brooklyn Bridge?). This lovely book is a celebration of the city's bridges, their architects and designers, their builders and their advocates. In it, readers will find a dazzling array of prose and poetry, from the classics by Hart Crane and William Carols Williams, to lesser known, but no less resonant, work.

Bascove's fourteen resplendent paintings form the cornerstone of the book. Their color and form not only show the structures bones, but also bring the viewer into contact with them. Bascove possesses a great talent; her ability to make the monumental intimate and the intimate monumental. This is not a book of architectural paintings, but a book of art - graced by some of the best writing of the past two centuries.

Review

"Iron rainbow to the bright water bending: That's how Derek Walcott describes a bridge in his poem of the same name. Walcott's "The Bridge" is one of many literary evocations of bridges in this book honoring the presence, both literal and metaphorical, of New York' famous spans, from the Brooklyn to the Queensboro, from the Hell Gate to the Harlem River bridges. Bascove, an artist whose work can be found in the collections of the Museum of the City of New York and the Musee de Cherbourg - as well as on the jackets of books by Robertson Davies, Jerome Charyn, and T.C. Boyle - brings a passionate geometry to her paintings of the various bridges, evoking the exhilarating, fearsome beauty of these "iron rainbows." -- The Washington Post Book World, May 17, 1998

Bascove...is a wonderfully fluid painter whose lines are reminiscent of the elegant yet muscular paintings of the Works Progress Administration muralists. Here, she has combined an interesting array of poetry and prose - ranging in mood and style from John Dos Passos's "Steamroller," and Gay Talese's "Building a Bridge is Like Combat..." to Joyce Carol Oate's mournful and reflective "Last Exit Before the Bridge" and the wonderful Galway Kinnell poem, "The River That is East" - with her spare yet evocative paintings...Stone and Steel is elegantly and clearly a reflection of an artist's style and personal interests and a beautiful addition to any library. -- Communication Arts, July 1998

Stone and Steel, a special part of the history, heart and beauty of New York. -- 1010 WINS

Edition details

• Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1567920810
• ISBN 13: 9781567920819
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 93