Solitude

In addition to leisure and recreation, city parks provided a place where couples could spend time together away from families and crowded apartments. Emphasizing the murky black of the night, George Bellows used tusche, a greasy ink, layered over lithographic crayon to create the mood of this print of park benches full of couples too absorbed in each other to notice anyone around them. A solitary man along the left edge is both physically and psychologically isolated from the others. Bellows often placed observers in his prints to suggest a connection between them and the viewer.