Featured Artwork - New Mexico Landscape by arsden Hartley - Brief Article

Marsden Hartley (American, 1877-1943). New Mexico Landscape, 1919. Oil on canvas; 30" x 36". Philadelphia Museum of Art: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection.

THINGS TO LEARN

* Marsden Hartley left school at age 15 to work in a Maine shoe factory. He then moved to Ohio where he was granted a scholarship to the Cleveland School of Art. Later, he was awarded another scholarship, this time to the National Academy of Design in New York. However, it was not until he was over 30 that he had his first exhibition in New York. The great patron of struggling artists, Alfred Stieglitz, recognized Hartley's talent and for many years continued to help him.

* Hartley's life was a story of constant traveling and self-doubt about his artistic talents. As an adult, he rarely stayed in one place for more than a year or two, as though he was never really sure where he belonged. He was also a very private person. He wrote many letters to people but had little personal contact with them. Eventually, he returned to his home state of Maine.

* Various themes appear in Hartley's work throughout his life, including landscapes, still lifes, abstractions and, occasionally, people. Many of his better landscapes were painted in Maine and Nova Scotia, although a few resulted from his visit to New Mexico. Most of his best-known abstract paintings were done in Paris and Berlin, just before the United States declared war on Germany in 1917.

* While the subjects of Hartley's pictures inspired him, he was usually more interested in artistic expression than he was in the objects themselves. For example, the excellent New Mexico painting shown here was simply the product of just one more stopping place in his continuing search for artistic meaning.

* Hartley's struggle for meaning led him to experiment with many of the artistic styles seen during his travels, including German Expressionism, French Fauvism and numerous forms of Cubism. French painter, Paul Cezanne, and Mexican painter, Jose Clemente Orozco, both had a very strong effect on his work. By the time he painted this landscape in his early 40s, Hartley's pictures were beginning to show a consistent style, frequently depicting rugged landscapes.

* In addition to his painting, Hartley also wrote about his deep commitment to art. He published four books, and many more manuscripts were found in his home after he died. He also wrote poetry and published essays on art. His daily routine for many years was to read and write in the mornings and to paint in the afternoons.

THINGS TO DO

* When studying this painting, students may find it useful to learn just where the idea for this picture came from. The small map shown here identifies the general area. Travel books and geography books are good sources of pictures and other information. Family photographs from students who have visited New Mexico may also be helpful.

Given the many places where Marsden Hartley lived, students may like to read his biography and then mark the places on maps of Europe and America. An extension of this task might be to stick small photocopies of the paintings beside each of these places.

* To enable students to have a more complete idea of the painting styles used by Marsden Hartley, teachers may find it useful to collect samples of his work representing the various locations where he painted and the numerous subjects he used.

The same kind of specialized collection may be made with the work of other artists to enrich student understanding. All too often, students only see a narrow selection of an artist's work that appears repeatedly in textbooks, history books and collections of prints and slides.

* Older students in school art programs are likely to want to make objects they draw and paint look as realistic as possible, so anything less than that disappoints them. Studying paintings like this one may help them overcome this problem.

While students may not be able to travel to New Mexico to paint landscapes from real life, they will be able to find books of excellent photographs that tell them what that region looks like. Numbers of illustrated tourist guides, for example, contain exceptionally good photographs. Using photographs from such sources together with reproductions of paintings like this one, students can attempt their own expressionist landscape interpretations.

* Students may also study the work of other painters of this period who were inspired by New Mexico and painted with expressionist feeling, including Georgia O'Keeffe and John Marin. In particular, students may be asked to talk about the paintings of all three artists. The differences between these artists are striking, so students should also be encouraged to identify similarities among their artistic messages.

BUILDING A PICTURE FILE

This painting may be used to illustrate various art-teaching needs. Potentially useful picture-file categories include: "Landscapes: New Mexico"; "Expressionist Artists: Marsden Hartley"; "Limited Palette"; and "Unity: Color and Shape."