Painter Marsden Hartley was born on this day in 1877
Hartley was a key player in the development of modernism in the United States.
Painter Marsden Hartley was born on this day in 1877 Hartley was a key player in the development of modernism in the United States.
Paracelsus was a sixteenth-century Swiss doctor and mystic who believed that everything evolved from a base matter he called "yliaster." Marsden Hartley read Paracelsus's treatises while working in Mexico. Here he visualizes the moment of creation as a jet of fire uniting a massive disc, reminiscent of Aztec sunstones, and an erupting volcano on a desolate Mexican plain.
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Pictured top: Marsden Hartley (1877–1943), Yliaster (Paracelsus),1932, oil, 25 1/4 x 28 1/2 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase made possible by the Smithsonian Acquisitions Program and by George Frederick Watts and Mrs. James Lowndes.
Source: Jacquelyn Days Serwer. Modernism & Abstraction: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (exhibition text, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1999).
Pictured bottom: Marsden Hartley (1877–1943), Self-Portrait ,1908, crayon , 12 1/16 x 8 15/16 in., Museum purchase through the Robert Tyler Davis Memorial Fund.