Stuart Davis’ 1938 oil on canvas painting Swing Landscape, 86 ¾ x 172 7/8 inches, was purchased in 1941 by new art director Henry Hope for the Indiana University Art Museum. The painting represents the harbor waterfront of Gloucester, Massachusetts, an artist colony and fishing harbor visited by Davis most summers between 1915 and 1934 (Philadelphia Museum of Art [PMA], 2005). It became the subject of a number of Stuart Davis paintings. The artist’s inspiration and theme for this artwork are not obvious to the viewer of Swing Landscape without knowing the background of the artwork and its artist. To that end, at first viewing the piece is non-representational. However, as the context of the artist’s history, his cultural influences and his artistic concept are understood, the piece is transformed and becomes an abstract. Stuart Davis was an early adopter of modern and abstract art in America during the Roaring Twenties, the Depression years and the post-war decades of the Twentieth Century. Swing Landscape is one of his most important works (PMA, 2005).
Davis supported himself early in his career doing illustrations for Harper’s Weekly and the radical The Masses, developing left-wing views and a social conscience (The National Archives Learning Curve, n.d.). In 1913, Davis participated as one of the youngest artists in the Armory Show in New York City which introduced European modernistic, avant-garde art to America (Britannica, 2008). Davis later described this show as “the greatest single influence I have experienced in my work” (Britannica, 2008). In the 1920’s, he began studying Picasso’s and Braque’s collage techniques (Painters, n.d.), and then Cubism, focusing on non-French subjects like jazz, radio, film, boats and harbors, and consumer products, “the American scene” (PMA, 2005). His collage work was actually the precursor to Pop Art in 1960’s America (Painters, n.d.). After a year’s sojourn in Paris in 1928, he began developing his own American style, influenced by the French modernists he met in France (Lane, 1978, p. 21). Davis viewed two-dimensional design and content with vibrant, bold colors and simple, abstract, strong forms as the basis of what he considered the new American art – modernism (Painters, n.d.).
Davis was significantly influenced artistically by jazz and swing music – to him, the musical equivalents to abstract art (PMA, 2005). “He spent much time listening to the Negro piano players in Newark dives … [to] hear the blues, or tin-pan alley tunes turned into real music” (Swing Era, n.d.). In America, records and radio made jazz and swing music popular, moving it from an “urban African-American experience” to “America’s most popular musical genre” (Swing Era, n.d.). Davis said “I think all my paintings, at least in part, come from this influence” (PMA, 2005). He listened to records while he painted (Swing Era, n.d.). It may be no small coincidence that this piece is named Swing Landscape. Perhaps swing music was played while he painted it, influencing both its creation and its naming.
In the 1930’s Stuart Davis was artistically adventurous and experimental, assimilating what he learned from his European stay (Wilkin, 1987, p. 128). Financially impacted by the Depression and wanting a broader audience, Davis joined the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration, which commissioned him to create murals for Radio City Music Hall (1932), the New York World’s Fair (1939) and the Swing Landscape mural for the Williamsburg Housing Project (1938) in Brooklyn, New York (PMA, 2005). The Swing Landscape mural was deemed too abstract for American acceptance and was never installed at the housing project. After short stays at the Federal Art Gallery in New York City, and the Cincinnati Modern Art Society, Swing Landscape was purchased by the Indiana University Art Museum, one of the museum’s earliest acquisitions (IU placard, n.d.).
In technically reviewing the primary image of the artwork, the piece is vibrant, including a flurry of activity and movement. The vibrancy comes from the use of primary and secondary hues as well as black and white which lights the canvas. The artist pairs complementary colors multiple times throughout the painting. The predominant colors are blue and red. The activity and movement, as well as interest in the piece, is generated by the pictorial field of objects of varying shapes, sizes, positions, depths, curves and colors that seem to move on the canvas. The artist has created two-dimensionality. The viewer can perceive depth in the pictorial objects, even though there is flatness; Davis relied on color, pattern and line to reflect depth. The piece is busy with a kaleidoscope of detail. The objects consume the entire canvas. There is no negative area in this piece. Its world extends beyond the frame, as objects are cutoff mid-form at the edges of the frame. Both color and form work together to create the images and feelings of the piece.
The painting’s secondary abstract imagery is maritime, with many nautical details: sails, masts, boat riggings, buoys, chains, pulley, ropes, ladders, lobster traps, seaside buildings, and houses submerged in waves and spewing several colors of smoke. The sun is rising or setting on the horizon. There are no people in the harbor area, though there is a feeling of hustle and bustle – a tempo akin to jazz or swing music. Many of Davis’ paintings focused on the working class – a working class harbor was a favorite subject of his to paint. This piece has an architectural or geometric feeling with objects created with both vertical and horizontal painted lines. The artwork is quite large and is best enjoyed from a distance. The viewer must digest this piece slowly; it is not consumable at a glance.
The brush strokes are very visible, not refined, and long, thick and edgy. The pigment is applied to the canvas thickly, impasto style. Light reflects off the white color to contrast with the other hues and intensify the brightness and boldness of the artwork. Davis was attracted to Van Gogh’s technique of vivid colors and generous pigmentation (Lane, 1978, p. 10). This artwork provides some evidence of that.
Swing Landscape is a confluence of abstraction, rhythmic waves and swing music, vivid colors, heavy pigmentation and artistic experimentation, all in the setting of a working class, fishing harbor, a place Davis enjoyed. The painting showcases Davis’ geometric and brightly colored signature style. Stuart Davis had such a pivotal influence on the direction of modern, abstract and pop art in America, based in part on American jazz and swing music. Swing Landscape is a very enjoyable artistic, historical and cultural study.
This blog entry is my response to Encounter Project Two – Material Culture (Object).
Davis supported himself early in his career doing illustrations for Harper’s Weekly and the radical The Masses, developing left-wing views and a social conscience (The National Archives Learning Curve, n.d.). In 1913, Davis participated as one of the youngest artists in the Armory Show in New York City which introduced European modernistic, avant-garde art to America (Britannica, 2008). Davis later described this show as “the greatest single influence I have experienced in my work” (Britannica, 2008). In the 1920’s, he began studying Picasso’s and Braque’s collage techniques (Painters, n.d.), and then Cubism, focusing on non-French subjects like jazz, radio, film, boats and harbors, and consumer products, “the American scene” (PMA, 2005). His collage work was actually the precursor to Pop Art in 1960’s America (Painters, n.d.). After a year’s sojourn in Paris in 1928, he began developing his own American style, influenced by the French modernists he met in France (Lane, 1978, p. 21). Davis viewed two-dimensional design and content with vibrant, bold colors and simple, abstract, strong forms as the basis of what he considered the new American art – modernism (Painters, n.d.).
Davis was significantly influenced artistically by jazz and swing music – to him, the musical equivalents to abstract art (PMA, 2005). “He spent much time listening to the Negro piano players in Newark dives … [to] hear the blues, or tin-pan alley tunes turned into real music” (Swing Era, n.d.). In America, records and radio made jazz and swing music popular, moving it from an “urban African-American experience” to “America’s most popular musical genre” (Swing Era, n.d.). Davis said “I think all my paintings, at least in part, come from this influence” (PMA, 2005). He listened to records while he painted (Swing Era, n.d.). It may be no small coincidence that this piece is named Swing Landscape. Perhaps swing music was played while he painted it, influencing both its creation and its naming.
In the 1930’s Stuart Davis was artistically adventurous and experimental, assimilating what he learned from his European stay (Wilkin, 1987, p. 128). Financially impacted by the Depression and wanting a broader audience, Davis joined the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration, which commissioned him to create murals for Radio City Music Hall (1932), the New York World’s Fair (1939) and the Swing Landscape mural for the Williamsburg Housing Project (1938) in Brooklyn, New York (PMA, 2005). The Swing Landscape mural was deemed too abstract for American acceptance and was never installed at the housing project. After short stays at the Federal Art Gallery in New York City, and the Cincinnati Modern Art Society, Swing Landscape was purchased by the Indiana University Art Museum, one of the museum’s earliest acquisitions (IU placard, n.d.).
In technically reviewing the primary image of the artwork, the piece is vibrant, including a flurry of activity and movement. The vibrancy comes from the use of primary and secondary hues as well as black and white which lights the canvas. The artist pairs complementary colors multiple times throughout the painting. The predominant colors are blue and red. The activity and movement, as well as interest in the piece, is generated by the pictorial field of objects of varying shapes, sizes, positions, depths, curves and colors that seem to move on the canvas. The artist has created two-dimensionality. The viewer can perceive depth in the pictorial objects, even though there is flatness; Davis relied on color, pattern and line to reflect depth. The piece is busy with a kaleidoscope of detail. The objects consume the entire canvas. There is no negative area in this piece. Its world extends beyond the frame, as objects are cutoff mid-form at the edges of the frame. Both color and form work together to create the images and feelings of the piece.
The painting’s secondary abstract imagery is maritime, with many nautical details: sails, masts, boat riggings, buoys, chains, pulley, ropes, ladders, lobster traps, seaside buildings, and houses submerged in waves and spewing several colors of smoke. The sun is rising or setting on the horizon. There are no people in the harbor area, though there is a feeling of hustle and bustle – a tempo akin to jazz or swing music. Many of Davis’ paintings focused on the working class – a working class harbor was a favorite subject of his to paint. This piece has an architectural or geometric feeling with objects created with both vertical and horizontal painted lines. The artwork is quite large and is best enjoyed from a distance. The viewer must digest this piece slowly; it is not consumable at a glance.
The brush strokes are very visible, not refined, and long, thick and edgy. The pigment is applied to the canvas thickly, impasto style. Light reflects off the white color to contrast with the other hues and intensify the brightness and boldness of the artwork. Davis was attracted to Van Gogh’s technique of vivid colors and generous pigmentation (Lane, 1978, p. 10). This artwork provides some evidence of that.
Swing Landscape is a confluence of abstraction, rhythmic waves and swing music, vivid colors, heavy pigmentation and artistic experimentation, all in the setting of a working class, fishing harbor, a place Davis enjoyed. The painting showcases Davis’ geometric and brightly colored signature style. Stuart Davis had such a pivotal influence on the direction of modern, abstract and pop art in America, based in part on American jazz and swing music. Swing Landscape is a very enjoyable artistic, historical and cultural study.
This blog entry is my response to Encounter Project Two – Material Culture (Object).
References
Encyclopedia Britannica Online. (2008). Stuart davis. Retrieved January 24, 2008) from
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9029523/Stuart-Davis.
(1941). IU art placard
Lane, J. R. (1978). Stuart davis: art and art theory. New York: The Brooklyn Museum.
The National Archives Learning Curve. (n.d.). Stuart davis. Retrieved January 24, 2008,
from http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTdavis.htm.
Painters Biographies (n.d.). Stuart davis. Retrieved January 24, 2008, from
http://www.3d-dali.com/Artist-Biographies/Stuart_Davis.html.
Philadelphia Museum of Art. (2005). Stuart davis and american abstraction: a masterpiece in focus. Retrieved February 12, 2008, from
http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/2005/82.html.
(n.d.). Swing era: painting the jazz product. Retrieved February 12, 2008, from
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ASI/musi212/emily/davis3.html.
Wilkin, K. (1987). Stuart davis. New York: Abbeville Press.
1 comment:
Great work.
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