Artwork of the Week: August 12, 2024
Children eagerly line up for a turn on a horse-drawn merry-go-round, lighting up a dark New York city street with a sense of anticipation and play. Traveling carousels were a common form of entertainment for children in urban environments in the early 20th century. Adult passersby walk by briskly past the vibrant scene before them. Draped in dark colors, the adults serve as a somber point of contrast to the vivid whites, soft blues, warm reds, and golden yellow paint strokes that make up the children. Merry-Go-Round offers a momentary vision (the traveling carousel will eventually move on, after all) of childhood defined by joy.
Throughout her artistic career, Bernstein was drawn to the bustle of city life, crowds, and people as social subjects. In addition to this traveling carousel, the artist often featured people going to movie theaters, listening in concert halls, inspecting hats in shops, lounging on busy beaches, and sitting in waiting rooms. Though Bernstein explored a wide variety of visual ¬styles in her art, her work maintained the same curiosity and fascination with representing the range of human activity and experience.
