World War and Art

¶ … Marsden Hartley epitomizes the transition in American art towards abstractionism. In fact, Hartley was integral to fomenting the shift in American art, which had until then tended to lag behind its European avant-garde counterparts. Hartley spent more than a quarter of a century in Europe before and during World War One, in both Paris and Berlin, where he learned emerging techniques from cubism and abstract expressionism to fauvism.

When Hartley returned to the United States, he retreated from the avant-garde styles and became known more as the "rooted-in-Maine American artist," (Slenske, 2014). Hartley's achievements lie as much in his versatility as in his encouragement of abstraction and experimentalism in American art. Hartley was born in Maine and exhibited a predilection for visual art at a young age. He was formally trained and got his start exhibiting in Alfred Stieglitz's Gallery 291 in New York. Stieglitz gave Hartley an exclusive exhibition, and later supported Hartley on his journey to Europe.

Although Hartley never attained commercial success during his career, he did have a profound impact on his contemporaries and tended to be well regarded among his peers. In Paris, Hartley found himself among art's inner circles. He met Pablo Picasso and he "frequented the now infamous Saturday evening art salons of Gertrude and Leo Stein," (Peltakian, n.d.). Afterwards in Berlin, Hartley was introduced to members of Der Blaue Reiter (the Blue Rider group) including Wassily Kandinsky, where he undoubtedly derived much of his expressionistic leanings (Peltakian, n.d.).

One of his more Kandinsky-esque paintings is "Musical Theme (Oriental Symphony)." Hartley's lover, German officer Karl von Freyburg, was killed in World War One while Hartley remained in Berlin. The death of von Freyburg precipitated many of Hartley's "greatest" and most renowned works like "Portrait of a German Officer" and "Berlin Abstraction." These two paintings showcase the artist's embrace of abstraction, fused with his deconstructionist understanding of cubism as well.

"Iron Cross" is another work from the same series, all of which use primary colors, bold geometric shapes, and almost total abstraction. The symbols in these paintings directly refer to von Freyburg, testimony to their serving as a eulogy and homage to his friend. For example, the number four refers to von Freyburg's military regimen, the number 24 to the year von Freyburg was when he died, and the iron cross itself to Freyburg's having been awarded it upon his death (Slenske, 2014).

Other paintings Hartley completed during this time, like "Indian Composition," exposed Hartley's longing for home as well as his lingering fascination with American Indian motifs (The Phillips Collection, 2016). "Indian Composition" would potentially signal his immanent return home in 1915, soon after he completed the set of paintings. When he did return, Stieglitz gave Hartley his own show again. This time, it was the German iconography that put off critics, who viewed the symbols not as being emblems of his lost love but as signs of his anti-American, pro-German attitudes.

A disheartened Hartley embarked on a journey of self-discovery thereafter, traveling and never remaining long in one place. Hartley's fascination with Native American iconography and longing for nature led him eventually to Taos, New Mexico to study and work with the art colony there. Stieglitz's connections there, particularly with Georgia O'Keefe, enabled Hartley's integration with the emerging zeitgeist of creating landscape art that was uniquely American and which also bore the timely signature of encroaching abstraction. The same themes can be seen in the art of Georgia O'Keefe.

Then, Hartley moved to Mexico City for a year, and during this era his paintings transformed entirely, with a more saturated palate like "Popocatepetl, Spirited Morning." No longer was Hartley using the primary colors of his Berlin phase. Hartley continued to be inspired by nature, and many of his Mexico-era paintings depicted the power of nature -- volcanoes as well as desert landscapes and some that depict the human form, albeit in expressionistic style.

Hartley later traveled through Nova Scotia and painted work inspired by the Maritimes, like "Fisherman's Last Supper." However, Hartley also traveled to Europe again before settling back to Maine, where he eventually died. Early American abstraction evolved in part because of Hartley's contributions, even though the extent of his influence on American art had been underappreciated during his lifetime by all but perhaps Stieglitz himself. Hartley's work, however, is more expressionistic in style than it is even abstract, especially when compared to his contemporaries like Stanton Macdonald-Wright.

As he shifted away.