Tip: move over the painting to use the lens.
Movement
Marsden Hartley · 1913
- Artist
- Marsden Hartley (American, 1877–1943)
- Date
- 1913
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Size
- 119.5 × 119 cm (47 × 46 7/8 in.)
- Made in
- United States
- Style
- Modernism
- Where to see it
- Art Institute of Chicago
Alfred Stieglitz Collection · CC0 Public Domain · Art Institute of Chicago · image via Wikimedia Commons · see it at the museum ↗
Notes from the museum
Unlike many other American artists, Marsden Hartley was more drawn to German Expressionism than to French modernism, and executed this painting in Berlin. Made on the eve of World War I, Movement possesses a turbulent energy that sparks associations with both the vibrancy of modern Berlin and movements of music. Like the Russian Expressionist painter Vasily Kandinsky, Hartley sought to make his work more like music, which he admired for its nonnarrative nature and its potential to be purely spiritual or separate from material reality.
Text: Art Institute of Chicago (open access). Our full story for this work is coming soon.
Slow Look
- The whole picture Let your eyes wander. Where do they want to rest?
- The light Find the brightest spot. What is it showing you?
- The edges Look at what is half cut off at the borders.
- One small detail Choose one tiny thing and stay with it for a while.
- The whole picture again Step back. Has it changed for you?
About Marsden Hartley
Marsden Hartley was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist. Hartley developed his painting abilities by observing Cubist artists in Paris and Berlin.
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