Ash Can
- noun
- /æʃ kæn/
- Archaic
:
estilo Ash Can
- The Ash Can painters captured the harsh realities of New York City in the early 1900s.
Examples
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A major Ash Can exhibition opened at the museum, featuring works by George Bellows and John Sloan.
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She wrote her thesis on the influence of Ash Can art on social realism.
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The Ash Can movement captured the essence of urban struggles.
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Many famous artists were part of the Ash Can school.
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The Ash Can painters vividly depicted the struggles of city life in their art.
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Many renowned works in the Ash Can style showcase the gritty realities of urban streets.
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The exhibition highlighted how Ash Can artists portrayed working-class life in America.
Synonyms
A group of American painters who paint the rough life of city streets
Surface Forms
Morphology
ash + Can
The literal constituents 'ash' (burning residue) and 'can' (a container) describe a physical object, not a style of painting; a B1 learner who knows those words would not infer 'a movement depicting gritty urban life' from them. This is a historical, lexicalized label (Ash Can/Ashcan School) for a specific art movement, so its meaning is culturally specific and cannot be derived compositionally.
Etymology
Ash Can may come from the image of an ash can, a dirty metal bin for ash and trash, because these painters showed the rough, everyday parts of the city like the things you might find near a trash bin. That's why Ash Can art means 'real, often harsh urban life'.
