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Paper Abstract: Artistic responses to social change. Early abstract painting as an individualistic, spiritual response to industrialization, urbanization and mass culture. Development of modernism in art after the 1913 Armory Show. Examines several works by American artist Marsden Hartley. Influence of Kandinsky, French symbolist art, ideas of American Transcendentalists and French philosopher Henry Bergson. Paper Introduction: Modernism in the arts was, in large part, a response to social change in the industrialized world and early abstract painting was an aspect of modernism that emphasized spirituality in art and the individual nature of the artist's expression. Although much of the modernist artistic response originated in Europe a few American artists, such as Marsden Hartley, were among the earliest of those who worked in abstract modes. The ready response of Hartley and a few of his compatriots was based on their prior interest in the relationship between painterly expression, the spiritual concerns of Transcendentalism and other philosophical and religious movements, and the artists' own experiences and emotions. This inward-turning tendency resulted from their perception of the tensions of modern life generated by industrialization, urbanization, and mass culture. From the Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. A Concise History of American Painting and Sculpture. It wasat this point that Hartley created the Fisk Gallery's Painting No. But within a short time his ownstyle began to emerge. Marsden Hartley. But when human imagination and feeling are then "stimulated tomore earnest vision, outlines and surfaces become transparent [and] causesand spirits are seen through them [in] these delicious awakenings of thehigher power."[ix] The desire to 'see through' nature to the higher forcesbehind it was a primary impetus to early American abstractionists and theidea meshed well with Bergson's notion of making an organic connection withthe universe. Although much of the modernist artistic responseoriginated in Europe a few American artists, such as Marsden Hartley, wereamong the earliest of those who worked in abstract modes. cit., 118. Based on a romantic ideaof the natural state of man Emerson argued in his essays that naturalperception was originally accurate and sharp, distinguishing--as animals dostill--every detail of the natural world. Scott, Marsden Hartley (NewYork: Abbeville Press, 1988), 42. Similar impressionsare engendered by the transparent wash of the blue and white striped formacross the large disks and by the wiggling lines of the flag-like red andwhite form that appears to be draped over the element 'behind' it. Acasual illusion of depth is also created by the appearance of overlay amongforms that continue on either side of other shapes. S. Modernism in the arts was, in large part, a response to social changein the industrialized world and early abstract painting was an aspect ofmodernism that emphasized spirituality in art and the individual nature ofthe artist's expression. cit., 211. But they do not refer to any particular iconographic system. [ii]J. On the one hand, artists respondedto modernization's creation of "new industrial and political conflict[that] divided society" with critical depictions of society's ills orreflections of its stresses.[ii] On the other hand, many artists--such asthe abstractionist painters--resisted the perceived dehumanizing effects oftechnology and the pressures of mass culture through a freedom ofexpression that they held to be "subject only to the inner discipline ofthe artist himself."[iii] The dominant view of art, however, was that itshould serve the status quo and be a part of society rather than somethingapart. Through the Stieglitz circle Hartley had already come in contact withsome of Kandinsky's ideas about the spiritual in painting and, as hereported, he had been influenced by the painter's On the Spiritual in Artlong before meeting him. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978.Scott, Gail R. This work was one of the many abstract compositions paintedby Hartley in the first flush of his enthusiasm for this aspect ofmodernism. But beyond such potential forms of symbolismPainting No. Theindividualism and inwardness of such modernist experiments as Hartley'sspiritual abstractions effectively rejected the idea that human beingscould be molded in this fashion. The majority of these works were painted during his severalsojourns in Berlin in 1913-1914 although, in many cases, it is uncertainwhether they were painted there or in Paris, where he first met Kandinsky. Dada and Surrealism. cit., 115. Simultaneously the indication that therewas something beyond the surface of the natural world--and that humanreason and the grace of the imagination could access this higher reality--made the aspirations of conventional, pragmatically oriented activity seemrather paltry. [iv]H. 3. [xii]Barbara Haskell, Marsden Hartley (New York: Whitney Museum ofAmerican Art and New York University Press, 198 ) 28. 3 functions solely as an expression of the artist's inner state throughcolor and shape. exception to thedominant rationalism of the day" were familiar to some Americans throughthe publication of their writings and art in several reviews.[vii] Bergsonheld that intuition was superior to intelligence in the apprehension ofreality, which he described as a continuous flux perceived at any givenmoment by immediate experience. Nor does he appear, like Kandinsky, to engage in explicatingmeanings through a specific system of colors. cit., 115. London: Phaidon, 1997.Grenville, J. All of these influences prepared Hartley for his European experienceand shortly after his arrival in Paris in 1912 he wrote to Stieglitz andconfirmed his conviction that Bergson was right, "that the intuition is theonly vehicle for art expression."[x] In Paris he received the full forceof the innovations of painters such as Cézanne, Matisse, and Picasso andhis 1912 paintings--which he referred to as either Intuitive Abstractionsor Cosmic Cubism--reflect Hartley's desire to find a form that wouldfacilitate his penetration of the natural world in search of the spiritual. There is no overt symbolism in the painting. But, although he decided that Picasso had developed "a depth ofunderstanding and insight into the inwardness of things," Hartley soonrejected the notion that things could serve--as they did for Picasso--as apoint of departure for the artist's attempt to achieve an emotionalconnection with reality that would reveal the spirit within.[xi] Heturned, therefore, to Kandinsky and, excited by the art and ideas inKandinsky's and Franz Marc's Der Blaue Reiter almanac, eagerly visitedBerlin. Marsden Hartley. Fromthe emergence of Impressionism in the 187 s through Symbolism in the 188 sand 189 s and movements such as Fauvism and Cubism in the first decade ofthe new century provocative avant-garde artists shared one belief, "thatall arts needed to be renewed by a response to the times."[i] Thisresponse, however, took various forms. [xiv]Taylor, op. Some of the forms employed in the painting are, however, suggestiveof symbols, e.g., the overlapping red and yellow circles, or disks, in theupper portion of the picture and the swoop of the green-and-white formbeneath them which seems to lead into a vortex but ends in an orangecircle. "Nature Symbolized: American Painting from Ryder to Hartley." In The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting, 189 -1985, ed. Grenville, A History of the World in the TwentiethCentury (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1994), 3. America as Art. [x]Quoted in Eldredge, op. 3 contains no references to any systematic symbology. In modernism's attempted destruction of the dominantconception of the arts as props of the economic and social order the earlyabstract painters went farther than most in the "introspective search forindividual expression."[v] Critical and public awareness of modernism in art only achieved alarge scale in the wake of the famed Armory Show of 1913 where the productsof European modernism contrasted so strikingly with the staidtraditionalism of the American contributions. One type of symbolism that may be afeature of this work, however, is the selection of colors. Eldredge, "Nature Symbolized: AmericanPainting from Ryder to Hartley" (in The Spiritual in Art: AbstractPainting, 189 -1985, ed. Intellectual approaches, in contrast,froze the flow of reality because they forced the artist to focusanalytically on particular ideas. [vi]Quoted in Charles C. Thus, for example, the color blue was regarded, quite naturally,as the color of the sky but was, by association, also the color expressiveof the highest spiritual reaches to which humanity aspired. [xvi]Quoted in Eldredge, 118. Bergson's theories were of primary importance to the Symbolistmovement whose "acclaim of the imaginative life and . New York: Whitney Museum of American Art and New York University Press, 198 .Morgan, H. As Baigell puts it,the spectator "was asked to share and to duplicate within himself theemotions felt by the artist when the latter, in the heat of creation, hadsought the essential life flow of objects."[xv] The essential question,therefore, is what type of inner state is conveyed by the work? 3(1913) in the Alfred Stieglitz Collection of the Fisk University Galleriesin Nashville. With the addition of humanreason, however, grace and feeling, the products of human imagination,began to dominate human perceptions of nature so that they became far lessdistinct. Thus, where its proponents saw modernism as a liberating force, itsopponents soon "equated it with social, political, and economicturbulence."[iv] Since the progressive improvement of humanity was seen asthe attainable goal of industrialism (and its cultural props) modernism'ssuspicion that such optimism was unwarranted made critics, patrons, and thepublic very nervous. 1 (1913), with its calligraphicoverlay of dark lines on roughly sketched fields of color, demonstrateHartley's early allegiance to Kandinsky. Thus for the most part this large (39 1/2" x 32") and rathercheerfully colored painting offers the viewer no traditional type of entréeinto its meanings. New Muses: Art in American Culture, 1865-192 . New York: Abbeville Press, 1988.Taylor, Joshua. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1994.Haskell, Barbara. Yet, when viewed on its own terms,an abstract work such as Painting No. Although this picturefeatures the eight-pointed stars found in other Hartley works there are noother elements that can be construed as depictions of any particular real-world forms or esoteric symbols. Edward Weisberger, 113-129. BibliographyBaigell, Matthew. The simplicity of the forms and their lack of correspondence to thereal world permit the viewer to experience the impact of the colors andforms unimpeded by immediate concerns. Whether the viewer can understand the nature of thatinner state depends solely on whether the artist can communicate iteffectively through the very basic means he employs. The red (of arather orange tone), yellow, blue, and green of the painting are the colorsthat Kandinsky's theory held were the basic components of the naturalworld. cit., 29. Such intellectual constructions, whilethey were clearly important in such areas as verbal communication,"prevented artists from feeling their way into the life of objects or fromexperiencing sympathetically their own organic connections to the flow oflife."[viii] Similarities existed between Bergson's ideas and those ofTranscendentalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson. A History of the World in the Twentieth Century. The readyresponse of Hartley and a few of his compatriots was based on their priorinterest in the relationship between painterly expression, the spiritualconcerns of Transcendentalism and other philosophical and religiousmovements, and the artists' own experiences and emotions. Abstractions such as Painting No. As such each of these colors also indicated other, higher qualitiesas well. 3--as an expression of the artist'sinner state and transcendental aspiration--can be understood as the productof the desire to reject a world that narrows its focus to the subject ofeconomic growth and technological progress. Wayne. There is a sense of vibrant movement in the painting, reinforced bythe bright colors which, in themselves, seem to indicate an elated, happystate. [viii]Baigell, op. A. The pragmatic rationalismrequired and highly prized by this modernized world is effectively setaside in favor of the individual's subjective expression of her/his ownstate. The viewer is assisted by what Emerson called the grace of theimagination's power to penetrate the appearance of nature and apprehend the"higher power" behind it.[xvi] As a response to the times Hartley's work lacks referential points ofconnection with the world around him. The only members of the artworld who were not taken by surprise by the exhibition were the fewpatrons, critics, and artists who congregated around Alfred Stieglitz'sgallery "291." Many of them had only seen European modernist art in thegallery itself but others had traveled in Europe and become swept up in thechanges being wrought by the various avant gardes. PaintingNo. cit., 158. As Morgannotes, however, this approach "implied a changed view of reality" and sucha move beyond traditional levels of artistic interpretation of the world"to creating a private reality, as moderns insisted, was challenging" tothe status quo.[xvii] Conventional thought held that the human race wascapable of continuous change in its progress toward perfection--andindustrialized Western civilization and mass culture were seen as thepresent, and necessary, stage in achieving this higher state. This means that she or he is freeto take in the feelings generated by these elements without her/hisexperience of the natural world (or that of the artist) cluttering his/herresponses. Wayne Morgan, New Muses: Art in American Culture, 1865-192 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978), 162). Nor does Hartley make anyreference to real-world objects as the Cubists and Fauves did. . cit. The infinitestrivings of the human race were, Kandinsky argued, inherently present inthe use of the color blue. S. [iii]Joshua Taylor, America as Art (New York: Harper and Row, 1976),quoted in Matthew Baigell, A Concise History of American Painting andSculpture (Icon Editions, Harper and Row, 1984), 21 . Icon Editions, Harper and Row, 1984.Eldredge, Charles C. This inward-turning tendency resulted from their perception of the tensions of modernlife generated by industrialization, urbanization, and mass culture. [xvii]Morgan, op. Hartley adds a dimension of perception that such a world ignoresand does so through the expression of his unique inner vision. What the impenetrability of Hartley's painting indicates, however, isthat the artist had succeeded in his attempt to create an abstract art thatwas "subject only to the inner discipline of the artist himself."[xiv] Hedid not, like the symbolists, rely on a system of symbolic forms nor evenon the imagery of dreams that was their frequent mode of 'intuitive'expression. As Hartley put it, "my first impulses came fromthe mere suggestion" of the book and even though he could not read Germanthe general discussion of the general theory "opened up the sensation forme--and from this I proceeded."[vi] But for Hartley, like other Stieglitzassociates such as the painter Arthur Dove, the interest in spiritual andpersonal expression in painting did not begin with Kandinsky's influence.A prior interest in the theories of the American Transcendentalists, FrenchSymbolist art, and the ideas of the French philosopher Henri Bergsonprepared the way. cit., 211. [vii]Eldredge, op. [v]Ibid., 161. It drew on the "dematerialized washes" of Cézanne,the structural notions of the Cubists, and incorporated personal emblemssuch as the "floating eight-pointed stars" and even, in some works, cleardepictions of Christian and Buddhist religious symbols.[xii] But Hartley'shigher goal at this time was "to suggest spiritual, cosmic attitudes ratherthan to convey specific meanings" and he was upset by visiting occultistswho told him that he had gotten his "Kabbalistic signs and symbols" allwrong.[xiii] He attempted to be guided in these works only by hissubconscious, but the emergence of misleading symbols prompted Hartley toeliminate (at least for a time) any clear references to the world. New York: Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Abbeville Press, 1986.Gale, Matthew. New York: Harper and Row, 1976.----------------------- Notes [i]Matthew Gale, Dada and Surrealism (London: Phaidon, 1997), 11. [xiii]Haskell, op. [ix]Quoted in Eldredge, op. [xi]Marsden Hartley, quoted in Gail R. Marsden Hartley was oneof the latter group and his response to the abstract revolution initiatedin Western Europe by Wassily Kandinsky can be seen in his Painting No. A. . Edward Weisberger, New York: Los Angeles CountyMuseum of Art and Abbeville Press, 1986), 118. Butthere are no other indications of anything remotely like a real-worldobject. [xv]Baigell, op. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.

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