At the start of the nineteenth century, the population of New York City was only 60,000, about a tenth that of Paris. By 1900, Paris had grown to about 2.7 million, and New York had outstripped it, reaching 3.4 million. This weekend I look at paintings depicting that change in New York between the mid-1880s and 1920. This article concentrates on the transition from leafy suburbs to skyscrapers of the early twentieth century, and tomorrow’s shows the human landscape a little later.

For those less familiar with New York City at the end of the nineteenth century, this contemporary map might help.

When William Merritt Chase returned from his training in Europe in 1878, he moved to New York, where he kept a studio for most of the rest of his life. From about 1886, he started painting outdoor scenes around Brooklyn and other parts of New York City, but ceased these by the time that he started teaching plein air painting at Shinnecock, Long Island, in 1891.

Over this period, Chase’s favourite scenes were those of the huge Prospect Park, then on the southern edge of Brooklyn. This had been the next project for Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux after they finished Manhattan’s Central Park, and had only been completed in 1873.

Brooklyn Landscape (c 1886) shows a few buildings in the distance, which could as easily have been a more rural setting. The rough land in the foreground does at least have the appearance of urban waste ground, before the area became more densely developed.

In his waterfront view of The East River (c 1886), Chase avoids getting too close to the factories and warehouses seen on the skyline. This is the waterway that separates Brooklyn from Manhattan Island to the north-west.

In Harbor Scene, Brooklyn Docks (1886), he follows similar compositional principles, even bringing in some grass and trees on the left.

The buildings Chase painted were seldom those typical of cities: Boat House, Prospect Park (1887) is far from urban, and the scene almost empty of people.

A City Park (c 1887) shows the edge of a park, where there are more people, and some distant buildings, but like his earlier waterfront views, they’re kept sufficiently small as to avoid their dominance.

This view of Prospect Park, Park in Brooklyn (c 1887), follows the same pattern.

Chase also painted a few works that take us into the backyards, including his Washing Day – A Backyard Reminiscence of Brooklyn (c 1887). Apart from the dominating washing, and the shrouded woman hanging it out, all we’re shown are trees and grass.

In his The Open Air Breakfast (c 1888), the house in the background is cunningly disguised, revealing only disembodied steps and a doorway.

Painted towards the end of this phase of his landscapes, his View from Central Park (1889) relegates the large buildings of Manhattan to its distant skyline.

Chase’s paintings of New York City are remarkable for his skill in turning each into a patch of green countryside, and carefully avoiding any passages which might look in the least bit urban, Brooklyn as leafy suburb.

Robert Henri’s art had centred largely on Philadelphia until he started teaching at the New York School of Art in 1902. By that time, he had rejected Impressionism and effectively joined what became known as the Ashcan School, for its gritty realist depictions of the contemporary American city.

On 5 March 1902, Henri painted Snow in New York (1902), a true cityscape devoid of trees or green, its streets properly populated.

Colin Campbell Cooper initially trained with Thomas Eakins in Philadelphia, then studied in Paris. He moved to New York City in 1904, by which time he had already started to paint urban landscapes. Once he was among the growing skyscrapers of the city, they became something of an obsession, together with the crowded streets below. He was probably the first American painter who specialised in cityscapes.

Cooper’s The Ferries, New York (c 1905) is a superb study of the dense crush of people on the ferries, the waterside warehouses, and the abundant smoke and steam among the higher buildings in the background.

Flatiron Building, Manhattan (c 1908) is an important painting in many ways, and one of the few made by Cooper using casein paints, which had just come into vogue. This was painted just a few years after this distinctive landmark at 175 Fifth Avenue had been completed (1902). Then one of the tallest buildings in New York City, at 20 floors high, its triangular section makes it instantly recognisable. It was originally named the Fuller Building, after George A Fuller, the ‘father of the skyscraper’, but quickly gained its more popular title. It was equally quickly photographed in classic images by Alfred Stieglitz (1903) and Edward Steichen (1904), but Cooper’s composition, with its bustle of people, carriages, and aerial wisps of steam, makes his view one of the most impressive.

Tomorrow we’ll resume with Cooper’s skyscrapers.