The Theater

From the museum

The opera houses, symphony halls, and theaters constructed in the first quarter of the 1900s in America’s cities accommodated increasingly large audiences and constituted a new realm of “high” culture. This print records John Sloan’s first experience with opera: likely that of Tannhäuser or Louise, both of which he saw with his wife, Dolly, in February 1909. To make this monotype—a unique image printed from a design made on a printing plate—Sloan manipulated and wiped black and green ink to evoke the effects of artificial lighting on a darkened interior, focusing more attention on the crowd than on the performance itself. To make this monotype, John Sloan covered a printing plate with ink and wiped it away in areas to create an image, a technique called "dark-field manner."

The museum’s own description, in English. Licence: CC0