George Benjamin Luks

This painting captures the towering neo-Gothic spires of New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Luks was a member of the Ashcan School of American painting, which emphasized realism and daily life. Here he paints the white marble as pale purple, making it stand out against the dark background—almost a reverse of the McBey print to the right. The play of light and shadow, seen in both these works from the early 1900s, is also a hallmark of the Gothic period (spanning the mid-1100s into the 1500s) and its revival (beginning in the mid-1700s). Luks paints the faithful as a mass of tiny dots on the church steps, insignificant compared to the building. Like other Gothic and neo-Gothic cathedrals, St. Patrick’s attempts to evoke religious awe through its enormous scale. 

–RN