This is an image of Joesph Stella’s Battle of Lights, Coney Island from 1914. As the biggest amusement area in America, Coney Island attracted over several million visitors a year. Luna Park (the largest amusement park) housed a vast tower covered by thousands of electric lights which was an astonishing sight at the time, as electrical bulbs were still a novelty. The site became a glowing spectacle, enhanced by the surrounding elaborate rococo ornamentation caked over the buildings. The place was an expanse of fantasy architecture which I think this image conveys. It is a confusion of colour and shape, depicting the rush of the scene. The artist’s use of line conveys movement and speed as the shapes swirl and collide. It gives an impression of lots of different things going on at once that overlap and intrude on each other; an explosion of activity. The colours used reflect the artificiality of the place, underlining its unnatural qualities. I think Stella has been hugely successful in his depiction of this fantasy world; he makes it seem almost surreal, as if you can be pulled in and engrossed by the painting. Although you can pick out elements (such as the tower) in the image, he has mainly used abstraction, which I think conveys the excitement, speed and colour of the place more successfully than simply painting its literal components.