Charles Courtney Curran painted this in 1912. Probably somewhere around The Gunks. He seems to have split his time between the small Cragsmoor and the not so small New York City.
The world of 1912 was naive and unknowingly standing at the end of an epoch of progress and change. The time between 1914 and 1945 would smash it into ‘modern times’ – if it wanted it or not.
Today we have no knowledge on how large the changes are that started to unfold. Covid is part of it, but the bigger ones are AI, the phonication of peoples minds and the unstoppable ascent of China.
Between 2014 and 2018 I was telling myself: Well it is better than 100 years ago. This holds true. But if you ask people about it many might claim that they’d rather be back on those 20s that they called roaring. A world with mud roads, cobble stones and before antibiotics.
Unrelated: Worpswede in the Teufelsmoor seems strangely similar to Cragsmoor on the Shawangunk Ridge. I am sure there were lots of other artist colonies during that time. Their styles differ and are also similar. Funny how that happened. Without an Internet or easy faithful color reproduction methods.