Thomas Benton City Activities With Dance Hall Summary

Thomas Benton’s piece titled City Activities with Dance Hall, one of three sections from American Today (America Regionalist artist, 1889-1975) represents the commemoration of true American values. This piece was made in the 1930s as a depiction of the ordinary lives of men and women in the United States during the Prohibition Era. It was purchased and restored in 1984 by AXA Equitable to hang in the lobby of AXA Equitable Tower in New York City, later to be donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2012. The mural is made of distemper and egg tempera on gessoed linen with an oil glaze, its view is seen on a wall measured 7ft. 8in. by 11ft. 2in.
The piece, with its rigorous colors, gives representation of the “true” American values by immortalizing the lives of ordinary men and women who Benton saw as rugged and energetic during the Prohibition Era. Thomas Benton devoted his career to
It refers to the poor-quality alcohol that was being made during that time for entertainment in the clubs. Because alcohol was the main sale point in the clubs, they needed to find a way to keep themselves open and not in the brink of going out of business. Benton continues with the Saloon on the right side of the mural. Saloons were what we call “bars” and what is a bar without alcohol. Saloons suffered during the Prohibition and the ban of alcohol caused a huge decline in sales. Benton dresses the wall of the saloon with advertisements showing how saloons had pushed out promotions of other things besides alcohol to try to make sales go up. The painting shows the promoting cigarettes on the back wall, the selling of soda and ice-cream, and mystery novels by “S.S. Van Dine”. As the Amendment had a huge effect on the men and women, and the struggle to survive in the harsh times of the dry movement, it also had some great achievements in the political and economic