Synchromy, Blue-Green
Artist: Stanton Macdonald-Wright (American, 1890-1973)
Date: 1916
Dimensions:
Painting: 36 1/16 × 28 1/16 in. (91.6 × 71.3 cm)
Frame: 40 1/4 × 32 1/4 × 2 in. (102.2 × 81.9 × 5.1 cm)
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number: 1996.19
Label Text:“I strive to divest my art of all anecdote and illustrations and to purify it so that the emotions of the spectator can become entirely ‘aesthetic,’ as in listening to music.” –Stanton MacDonald-Wright, 1916
Synchromy Blue-Green encapsulates Stanton MacDonald-Wright’s interest in color theory and pure abstraction. MacDonald-Wright and a fellow American artist, Morgan Russell, founded an art movement called Synchromy (meaning “with color”) in 1913. Drawing on color theories, the movement was to be the next logical progression from Cubism. The artists strove to move beyond mere abstraction of figures and objects to arrive at a purified expression of ideas through color.
In spite of its pure abstraction, Synchromy Blue-Green draws us to the focal point in the upper center of the composition. The burst of warm orange and red seems to be a beacon of light or a musical crescendo rising from the shadows of the neighboring planes of cooler colors. The flat, satiny paint hardly reveals the work of the artist’s hand, which allows for us to concentrate purely on our aesthetic and emotional response to this symphony of color.
Synchromy Blue-Green encapsulates Stanton MacDonald-Wright’s interest in color theory and pure abstraction. MacDonald-Wright and a fellow American artist, Morgan Russell, founded an art movement called Synchromy (meaning “with color”) in 1913. Drawing on color theories, the movement was to be the next logical progression from Cubism. The artists strove to move beyond mere abstraction of figures and objects to arrive at a purified expression of ideas through color.
In spite of its pure abstraction, Synchromy Blue-Green draws us to the focal point in the upper center of the composition. The burst of warm orange and red seems to be a beacon of light or a musical crescendo rising from the shadows of the neighboring planes of cooler colors. The flat, satiny paint hardly reveals the work of the artist’s hand, which allows for us to concentrate purely on our aesthetic and emotional response to this symphony of color.
On view
In Collection(s)