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Lot Essay
In the summer of 1935, Marsden Hartley traveled to the island nation of Bermuda to help address various health concerns including chronic bronchitis and depression. The restful summer and sunlight of the island allowed the artist to sufficiently recover, and soon after he traveled north that fall to Nova Scotia. Following an equally spiritual rejuvenation in Nova Scotia where he stayed with the Mason family, in December Hartley traveled to New York for financial reasons. Back in the United States, Hartley received a stipend from the Works Progress Administration to produce paintings which resulted in his Bermuda Fantasy series. With brilliant color and bustling forms, Flowers from a Lonely Child - for Mary of the Volcanoes embodies the dazzling qualities associated with the series. The latter portion of the work’s title, likely a reference to the Virgin Mary, further speaks to the spiritual awakening Hartley experienced during his 1935 travels.
Barbara Haskell explains, "What Hartley did produce for the WPA were paintings devoted to the flower and fish motifs begun earlier in Bermuda. Because flowers had been scarce there, Hartley had invented his own floral motifs. He described the resultant brightly colored fantasies as imaginative portrayals of things 'seen or sensed in Bermuda’…The most striking feature of these Bermuda Fantasies is their color range, more brilliant now than any of Hartley's work since his 1908-9 Neo-Impressionist landscapes…Hartley abandoned the restrained earth tones of recent years for a palette of high-keyed pinks, blues and reds…he applied dabs of brilliant color over the entire canvas surface to create a speckled, ornamental effect which visually unties the disparate, otherwise unrelated forms of the composition. Noting that his paintings were ‘all gay - no more dark pictures now,’ Hartley attributed their jubilance to ‘a Spiritual rebirth, etc.' These paintings were the first pictorial manifestation of his new ebullient attitude towards life which had developed during his six week stay with the Masons [in Nova Scotia]. At the same time, they reflect his continuing commitment to avoid profound subject matter. 'For with flowers,' Hartley explained, 'one escapes into simplicity without mood'." (as quoted in Marsden Hartley, New York, 1980, pp. 99).
Barbara Haskell explains, "What Hartley did produce for the WPA were paintings devoted to the flower and fish motifs begun earlier in Bermuda. Because flowers had been scarce there, Hartley had invented his own floral motifs. He described the resultant brightly colored fantasies as imaginative portrayals of things 'seen or sensed in Bermuda’…The most striking feature of these Bermuda Fantasies is their color range, more brilliant now than any of Hartley's work since his 1908-9 Neo-Impressionist landscapes…Hartley abandoned the restrained earth tones of recent years for a palette of high-keyed pinks, blues and reds…he applied dabs of brilliant color over the entire canvas surface to create a speckled, ornamental effect which visually unties the disparate, otherwise unrelated forms of the composition. Noting that his paintings were ‘all gay - no more dark pictures now,’ Hartley attributed their jubilance to ‘a Spiritual rebirth, etc.' These paintings were the first pictorial manifestation of his new ebullient attitude towards life which had developed during his six week stay with the Masons [in Nova Scotia]. At the same time, they reflect his continuing commitment to avoid profound subject matter. 'For with flowers,' Hartley explained, 'one escapes into simplicity without mood'." (as quoted in Marsden Hartley, New York, 1980, pp. 99).