Abstraction (Military Symbols)
Artist: Marsden Hartley (American, 1877-1943)
Date: 1914-5
Dimensions:
Painting: 39 1/4 × 32 in. (99.7 × 81.3 cm)
Frame: 42 × 34 3/8 × 1 5/8 in. (106.7 × 87.3 × 4.1 cm)
Medium: oil on canvas
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number: 1980.1013
Label Text:Living in Berlin in 1913–15, American artist Marsden Hartley experienced the militaristic pageantry and spectacle of the outbreak of World War I, aspects for which he claimed to have a childish wonderment. However, he was also confronted with the sober reality of war when his 24-year-old love, Prussian lieutenant Karl Von Freyburg, died in battle in 1914, and a dear friend, Von Freyburg’s cousin, was seriously wounded.
Abstraction (Military Symbols) is part of a 14-painting series that Hartley produced in 1914–15 dedicated to these men. He expressed his emotions in the paintings by using a personal vocabulary of symbols. Hartley simplifies and distorts the banners, flags, and emblems to create powerful, decorative patterns and dynamic, pulsating rhythms that convey his intense response to such military displays.
Abstraction (Military Symbols) is part of a 14-painting series that Hartley produced in 1914–15 dedicated to these men. He expressed his emotions in the paintings by using a personal vocabulary of symbols. Hartley simplifies and distorts the banners, flags, and emblems to create powerful, decorative patterns and dynamic, pulsating rhythms that convey his intense response to such military displays.
On view
In Collection(s)