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