Since opening in 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge has been captured in paintings, photographs, and illustrations by scores of artists, each rendering the Bridge’s beauty and power in their own way.
But it’s the poetic, enchanting Brooklyn Bridge depicted by Johann Berthelsen, which he titled “New York Skyline From the Brooklyn Navy Yard,” that I find most mesmerizing.
Born in Denmark the same year as the Bridge was completed, Berthelsen moved to the Midwest in 1890. He studied voice and became an opera singer, but after relocating to New York in the 1920s he decided to pursue painting. By the 1930s, he’d sold several works and was building a reputation as a powerful Impressionist painter.
I’m not sure when Berthelsen painted this nocturne of the Brooklyn Bridge. Considering the heights of the Manhattan-side buildings and the electric lights almost twinkling from their many windows, I would guess the 1920s.
It’s a transfixing collage of color and light, just like New York at street level. I can’t take my eyes off the graceful, flowing bridge span that bisects the painting, separating the towering buildings, piers, and ship traffic from the heavens above.
Ephemeral New York 