Cities of modernity: The self and the city through text, image, and moving images

Résumé du document

I have decided to study the aspect of light in the city. In a city, there are several sources of light, some natural, like the sun, or the stars, some artificial as streetlights or festive illuminations. But studying the light also means studying the absence of light, the darkness. How do those different sources of light affect our perception of the city? How does the city change with the different hours of the day? Why is the city not the same at midnight as at noon? To study this large theme, we have chosen three different documents. Two of them involve images: one painting of the 19th century by Eugène Jansson that pictures Stockholm and one photograph of the 20th century by Berenice Abbott on New-York. Our last document is the extract of a novel, Oliver Twist by Dickens, in which the action takes place in London.

This is a painting of the Swedish painter Eugène Jansson. It depicts the city of Stockholm at twilight. In 1899 (the year of this canvas), Stockholm was a highly dynamic city: located on the banks of the Baltic sea, it was the economical center and gateway of the country. Moreover, at the time, the population was rapidly increasing. The painter lived almost all his life in this city so he is emotionally attached to it. What we see here is a view of Stockholm from a high point of view. It is what the painter was seeing from his studio.

Extraits

[...] Cities of modernity: The self and the city through text, image, and moving images I have decided to study the light in the city. In a city, there are several sources of light, some natural, like the sun, or the stars, some artificial as streetlights or festive illuminations. But studying the light also means studying the absence of light, the darkness. How do those different sources of light affect our perception of the city? How does the city change with the different hours of the day? [...]

[...] There is a sensation of fluidity, movement: sensation of movement which is accented by the strong line of perspective created by the white avenue from the front of the photograph to its background. The light also creates a feeling of heat: the background of the photograph is in a kind of heat haze, sign of a warm summer's day. Even if we cannot see precisely see the people in the street, it is not difficult to imagine them in T-shirt, or in skirts. Because the still buildings are in the darkness and the animated street in the light, we have the feeling that the light is at the origin of the movement. [...]

[...] Found in New-York changing, revisiting Berenice Abbott's New-York, Douglas LEVERE and Bonnie YOCHELSON, New-York, Princeton architectural press This is a photograph of New-York City took in 1935. At the time, New- York emerges as a centre of the world and as the perfect example of a metropolis. It is a very dynamic city, a financial, economic and cultural centre. From an architectural point of view, New-York is also the city of the skyscrapers, of gigantesque buildings. In this photograph, we are at noon, the sun fully lights the city. This is a highly constructed photograph. The construction is geometrical, with a strong perspective. [...]

[...] From this perspective comes a feeling of harmony (harmony also in the colours: there are almost only shades of blue). The city and we are at the crossing of two moments: the day and the night. Therefore, everything is blended, mixed. The natural light is aside the artificial one; the city seems to melt down in the nature: the building is in the same colour than the sky and the water, the city and its lights reflect themselves in the sea. [...]

[...] En un mot, la société rétrécie qu'il monte autour de lui dédales des parcours et codes internes lui sont une peau où il se sent en sécurité : petite société de nuit, microcosme à la demande. To conclude, the painting of Jansson, with its visible brush strokes, develops a fantasised vision of the city: the self create his own rules, literally draws his space, his city. Berenice Abbott pictures a city at noon, and this is the city that creates the lines, the rules, the plan, for the human. And the light has two different functions: in the painting, it is a way of appeasement after the rush of the day. [...]