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October 25, 2005
Art from the American Century
The current exhibit at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester features four American artists and Alfred Stieglitz, the man who nurtured them. I love art, but I’m a word person, and sometimes even when the pictures excite me, I take away text from an exhibit as much as I take away images. I wrote down some of the words I took from this one, and I want to share them with you, but first a few words about the art.
The four artists are John Marin, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley and Georgia O’Keeffe, who were born between 1870 and 1887. Except for O’Keeffe, who was Stieglitz’s wife, they are not household names.
I’ve looked for Marin’s pictures in museums and galleries for more than 30 years. I was first drawn to them by Henry Miller’s account of a visit with the artist in The Air-Conditioned Nightmare. Marin is known as a watercolorist. Until Sunday, I had never seen his White Mountain landscapes or his later, larger oils of the busy Manhattan streets beneath buildings that bend like weeds. Nor had I known he was ambidextrous, which led me to see him as Edward Scissorhands waving his arms before his canvas with a brush in each hand. The three people with me, two of whom paint, looked closely at the canvases trying to discern which strokes Marin had painted with his righthand brush, which with his left.
Marsden Hartley’s Maine paintings are dense and wonderful. They literally take you into the woods or to the edge of the ocean. The O’Keeffes here show her range. There is a barn with straight true lines, a striking vista of a V separating two white cliffs and several vintage O’Keeffe works with their sensual shapes. The surprise of the show for me, and for my wife the star, was Arthur Dove. We spent an hour and half at the Currier, and I’ll bet she stood for half of it staring at his canvases. For the most part these are colorful abstractions, closer to the O’Keeffe than the Hartley, although it would be a mistake to see the painters in this group as a school. They might share the goal of favoring form and color to convey feeling, but the Stieglitz Circle was nothing like the Hudson River School, for example, in the sharing of technique and subject.
Seeing these artists reminded me that we are already moving some distance beyond the 20th century – the American century. It made me think about the vast number of artists, particularly in mid-century, who created American art. And it made me see the willed aspect of this burst of creativity. Or at least it was willed on the part of Alfred Stieglitz.
Stieglitz sold the pictures in this exhibit to a collector named Duncan Phillips, with whom he carried on a correspondence for many years. I don’t know that Stieglitz was 100 percent genuine in his letters to Phillips – I mean, as much as Stieglitz disparaged commercialism, he was writing to a good customer. But I chose to take him at his word, especially since the two quotations I’ll share from letters on display in Manchester were written 17 years apart. One refers to art, the other to the country itself – not just its art but also its moral place in the world.
From 1926: “You see, I have a passion for America and I feel, and have always felt, that if I could not believe in the workers in this country, not in the imitator of what is European, but in the originator, in the American himself digging from within, pictures for me would have no significance.”
And from 1943, with the country at war: “My fight becomes more and more for America, but not in the narrow sense but in the world sense. If we don’t lead the world I am afraid we are in for centuries of darkness, and don’t think for one moment I am speaking of America in terms of nationalism.”
Posted by Mike Pride at October 25, 2005 07:55 AM
Comments
Judd Gregg may be somewhat standoff-ish with the media. Of course, it's not his job to sell newspapers.
Regarding his interaction with constituents, however, I think you exaggerate. A short story . . .
In the past I have chaperoned groups of high school students on a tour to Washington D.C. During one trip, I had a group of New Hampshire students and, as we were crossing the capital lawn, we noticed a news conference in progress. I thought this would be a great experience for the students, so we went to watch. As it turns out, Judd Gregg was one of those in attendance.
As Sen. Gregg went on the air, I approached one of his aides and told them that some his constituents were watching and asked if he could take a moment to greet them when he finished. He relayed the message to Sen. Gregg, who agreed.
After the news conference, he spent a good 15 minutes talking with the students. He shared with them his thoughts on the issue being discussed (health care) talked about how the news conference had come about, and what was the strategy for holding the event. He showed a conviviality and sincere interest in the students and their trip that was welcome and refreshing.
In this case, he was anything but standoff-ish.
Posted by: Alan at October 27, 2005 07:35 AM