Terrace at the Mall, Cantral Park 1890

Curator: I find myself quite drawn to the textures in this painting; the materiality is so central to the scene, giving it a weighty feel, which in turn adds to the feeling of being somewhere serene. Editor: William Merritt Chase painted "Terrace at the Mall, Central Park" around 1890. Chase captured scenes that were common during this era. It is interesting how the artist documented life in a place that has so many meanings to those who frequent Central Park. Curator: There’s a captivating duality, don’t you think? On one hand, we're drawn to the material, that palpable sense of garden stone and greenery crafted from the oil paints. But there's also a commentary on leisure, the democratization of outdoor space in an era when many urban environments were still incredibly constrained by class and labor divisions. Editor: Indeed, the painting style, and Chase's decision to apply paint outdoors—a plein-air approach—connects with this democratizing impulse. He moved beyond the studio, engaging with a public park setting as a source of inspiration. Look at how that affects the composition, though. How does it change the way people perceive outdoor spaces? Curator: Well, for one, he is emphasizing the constructed nature of even something like a 'natural' park landscape. The careful arrangement of the plantings, the ornamentation of the terrace – it reminds us that Central Park itself was an act of design and engineering, made possible by particular forms of labor, consumption of material, and access. What are we really viewing when we are consuming the artist's vantage point of this landscape? Editor: That brings in the class politics, because, even as a public space, the park was shaped by upper-class ideals and social control. It reminds me that landscapes don’t merely represent nature, but ideas about ownership, leisure, and national identity. This area was well planned and arranged for everyone to view and enjoy. Curator: It speaks to this tension between artistic creation, the reality of manufacturing the materials for those creations, and the way landscapes come to embody very specific societal meanings, wouldn't you say? We can be appreciative, but it’s also productive to think critically about how places come to be, and what values they project. Editor: A good point to reflect upon while walking through a city's open and public park spaces, especially as more and more of our shared common space shifts from public into privately controlled real estate, a point of view. Curator: Precisely. So let's allow our musings on Chase's view into the Terrace at the Mall in Central Park. A way of framing these observations as you perhaps sit near a park or meander through its planted beds today.