Main Street, Gloucester

A summer afternoon in Gloucester, Massachusetts comes to life in this 1917 street scene by John Sloan. Pedestrians cluster along the sidewalk while a trolley makes its way down the road and an open-top car rolls across the sun-washed pavement. The brick buildings glow in warm reds and oranges, framing all the activity, and above them a big blue sky churns with clouds that give the whole picture a breezy, wide-open mood. Nothing dramatic is happening. It is just an ordinary day, which is precisely what drew Sloan to the subject.

Sloan belonged to the Ashcan School, a circle of American painters in the early 1900s who rejected pretty, idealized art in favor of honest scenes of city life. He spent his summers in Gloucester through the 1910s, and the seaside town clearly loosened up his usual style. The gritty grays of his New York work give way here to sunnier tones and brighter light, applied with quick, energetic brushstrokes. The result is a modest but genuine record of a small town going about its business, painted by an artist who thought regular life was worth looking at.