Like other city dwellers, New Yorkers follow the progress of the days and seasons on the details of the buildings and structures around them, from the rosy-pink and golden light of dusk upon the brick and stone to the melting of snow on window sills or the glint and angle of sunrise caught between two walls. New York’s iron railings and stoops offer one such place. Andrew Berrien Jones has cast his attuned eye to them and committed what he has seen and experienced to canvas, creating a visual poetry of light, shadow, color, and form.

To Jones, the ubiquitous “stoopscapes” are many things: the settings of daily and seasonal cycles, part of the city’s “urban ruins,” places where the spirits of the past accompany us as we traverse the steps, and embodiments of the legacy of the artisan, he writes. They are tangible proof of time’s advance. One can observe all of these aspects in Jones’ paintings, which are the subject of an exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, located at 1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street, until Aug. 9.

The exhibit, “Stoops of Manhattan: Railings and Shadows,” is of more than 20 oil paintings of the decorative ironwork from homes of the 1830s and 1840s. Even a glance at these paintings makes one more aware and appreciative of a part of the streetscape that we touch, hold, and walk near but don’t always consider.

Jones’ subjects speak of the walking life: He paints primarily within walking distance of his home in New York’s West Village. His subjects are drawn from the time period, the 1830s through the mid-1840s, when the construction of grand townhouses on the north side of Washington Square heralded the establishment of the Greek Revival style in New York’s domestic architecture, according to the exhibit notes. It’s amazing and gratitude-inducing to consider how these iron railings have lasted, year in and year out, for a time that’s not that shy of 200 years.

Vantage Point and Setting

In that time, the ironwork has inspired artists such as photographer Berenice Abbott and painter Edward Hopper. Stoops actually have origins in New York City’s Dutch settlement. It was a Dutch practice to elevate homes as a means of flood protection, and the name “stoop” comes from the Dutch word for veranda, “stoep,” the exhibit notes explain. As time went on, stoop has come to refer to the flight of stairs and the landing that lead to the parlor-floor entryway of the urban townhouse.

As anyone knows who has hung out on stoops (as I have), one can see or create a whole world on them, from playing ball to observing the passing show of people and pets to gossiping with neighbors. Walk down any street dominated by the plentiful four- and five-story townhouses and residential rowhouses in Manhattan, Brooklyn, or the city’s other boroughs, and your eyes can feast on an immense variety of swirls, geometric patterns, and decorative elements in stoop railings and window grilles. They are a complex, appealing, and elegant element in the street tapestry.

Jones’ paintings both capture the beauty of the ironwork and form a rich historic chronicle. In an artist’s statement that accompanies the exhibit catalog, Jones calls the railings “urban ruins,” likening them to ancient ruins that the forces of time leave “both compromised and enhanced.” His Bethune Street Shadows, 2008 (photo, artist’s Web site), captures such effects. The painting depicts the intricate railings of an 1836 townhouse at 27 Bethune Street. They are greenish silvery black with splotches of light orange rust, so detailed your hands can almost feel the rusted areas. The shadows thrown on the steps by the curving top railing and an anthemion motif – a floral-shaped ornament – seem like magnified insects.

Looking at Jones’ paintings, I am in touch with how much I notice the play of light and dark, shadows and forms, on the railings throughout the days and seasons as I walk around New York. In Jones’ West 4^th Street Quatrefoils, 2008 (photo), the winter midday sun creates vivid black silhouettes of the four-leafed forms topped by floral petals and thin railings with swirls on the pinkish orange steps and landing.

These railings exemplify the High Classical Style (1835-1840), the exhibit explains, especially inspired by Greek art and containing its elements such as Greek anthemion motifs. An example is Jones’ West 11^th Street Anthemions, 2008 (photo), from a townhouse at 331 W. 11^th Street in the West Village, dated 1838-1839. These highly classical-style stoop railings are black-gray bathed in a peach-orangish light. This is one of the most multidimensional of Jones’ works, giving the effect one sees in multiple mirrors.

“Street Vegetation”

The styles of railings, like other residential elements, are and have been a matter of taste and fashion. Federal-style railings fell out of favor, giving away to large cast ironwork panels of anthemions placed around egg-and-dart wreaths. Architects and builders were influenced in those choices by guides such as architect Minard Lafever’s The Beauties of Modern Architecture, published in 1835.

Jones’ oeuvre obviously reflects a love of these forms both strong and delicate, and his paintings give homage, as he notes in the exhibit catalog, to the ironworkers and their lost art. Viewing New York’s many 19^th century townhouses, or others in cities like Philadelphia or Boston, makes one mindful of their skilled, careful work. Jones notes this art is “exemplified by the complexity of a spiraling newel rail that descends through multiple planes in complex geometries no longer practiced.” How many generations beyond have enjoyed the ironworkers’ intricate work!

As the 19^th century progressed, the stoops’ ironwork contained less wrought iron and more cast elements. Throughout, according to the artist, those who created the railings expressed the iron as “street vegetation,” Jones writes, in rosettes as flowers, scrolls of iron as curling stems, and other facets.

The exhibit shows just how many variations were possible, and what beautiful forms, full of abstract patterns and even a kind of flowing movement. East 7^th Street Railings II, 2008 (photo below), displays this kind of motion. The stoop, dating to around 1841, is of the Plain Style that became more popular in the early part of the 1840s. It lacks the more ornate motifs of the earlier ironwork.

Jones’ painting is of the graceful scrollwork of two matching stoops on the townhouse at 262 E. 7^th Street, iron that curves easily as a wave, silhouetted against sunlight, green leaves, and the pastel tones of the townhouse’s front. The townhouse is not a designated landmark. Many of these historic homes continue to be altered or demolished, or their features subject to vandalism or thievery. Even with landmark preservation, a goodly number of the stoops and railings in his paintings, Jones maintains, are vanishing.

Paintings such as Andrew Berrien Jones’ are, thus, of many layers – an artist’s interpretation of a common object in our midst, a historical record, a reflection of the legacy of those who practiced a skilled craft many years ago, and visual glories in their own right. Sometimes I wonder why I love certain building details and effects so much. Paintings such as Jones’ help show why, as they possess both the magic and message of the everyday path upon which we walk.

Note: To view more of Andrew Berrien Jones’ paintings and find information about exhibits of his work, visit the artist’s Web site. The George Billis Gallery represents the artist.