Brooklyn Museum: American Art: Painting No. 48

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Painting No. 48

A member of New York's cultural vanguard in the early decades of the twentieth century, Marsden Hartley embraced a modernist style long before many of his American peers. With the support of Alfred Stieglitz, a progressive photographer and gallery owner, Hartley spent the years between 1912 and 1915 in Paris and Berlin, where he was exposed to the latest artistic trends of Cubism and Expressionism. This painting displays these influences in its vibrant colors, loose brushwork, and arrangement of abstract, geometric forms. The numeral 8 appears prominently in the composition and seems to explode into the foreground. According to the artist, the picture represents the mystical embodiment of "eight," a number generally associated with spiritual transcendence. Although Hartley offered no additional explanation, hints of his experience of pre-World War I Germany emerge in motifs that suggest the insignia and epaulets of soldiers' uniforms and the brash sounds of military bands.

Artist: Marsden Hartley, American, 1877-1943
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dates: 1913
Dimensions: 47 3/16 x 47 3/16in. (119.9 x 119.9cm)
Collections: American Art
Museum Location: This item is on view in American Identities: A New Look, Modern Life, 5th Floor
Accession Number: 58.158
Credit Line: Dick S. Ramsay Fund
Image: Overall, 58.158_SL1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph