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On the Road

"Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life."—Jack Kerouac

Beat generation author Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, eighty years ago today. In the classic novel On the Road, published in 1957, Kerouac documented cross-country adventures and explored a stream of consciousness literary style.

The road dominates in this nocturnal landscape by Allan D'Arcangelo. From the viewpoint of a driver, the four images reveal the rising of a commercial sign, rather than a sun or moon, over the trees.

Pictured: Allan D'Arcangelo, 1930–1998, (7 Serigraphien, portfolio) June Moon 1963, 1969, color serigraph on paper, 23 1/2 x 25 1/2 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum Purchase.