science

The Soul of the Soulless City

The Soul of the Soulless City is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Soul of the Soulless City rather than just read about it. In short: The Soul of the Soulless City, originally titled New York – an Abstraction, is an oil on canvas painting by the English artist C. R.

Key takeaways

The Soul of the Soulless City belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Soul of the Soulless City to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Soul of the Soulless City from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Soul of the Soulless City, originally titled New York – an Abstraction, is an oil on canvas painting by the English artist C. R. W. Nevinson, from 1920. It is held in the Tate Britain, in London. It depicts a fictional part of the elevated railway in Manhattan, painted in a style influenced by cubism and futurism.

Creation Nevinson visited New York City for the first time in 1919 and was immediately impressed by the city. He made many sketches of which some were turned into paintings. He painted New York – an Abstraction after his return to London and before his second visit to New York in October 1920. The second visit however left him embittered, possibly due to the poor reviews of his exhibition at Frederick Keppel & Co.

Provenance New York – an Abstraction was first exhibited at the Bourgeois Galleries in New York in 1920. When it was exhibited at the Faculty of Arts Exhibition in London in 1925, Nevinson's disillusionment with the city had caused him to rename it The Soul of the Soulless City. The painting was acquired by Tate in 1998 and is on display at Tate Britain. In 2014 Tate presented a virtual version of the painting in the video game Minecraft.

References

Further reading Green, Matthew (2015). "Powerfully lonely". Tate Etc. (33). ISSN 1743-8853.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Soul of the Soulless City

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Soul of the Soulless City claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Soul of the Soulless City before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Soul of the Soulless City ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Soul of the Soulless City

In research: The Soul of the Soulless City appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Soul of the Soulless City in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Soul of the Soulless City is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1920 paintings, Cityscapes, Culture of Manhattan, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Soul of the Soulless City outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Soul of the Soulless City in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Soul of the Soulless City means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Soul of the Soulless City out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Soul of the Soulless City in simple terms?

The Soul of the Soulless City, originally titled New York – an Abstraction, is an oil on canvas painting by the English artist C. R.

Why does The Soul of the Soulless City matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Soul of the Soulless City?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Soul of the Soulless City.