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Lot Essay
In 1937, Marsden Hartley traveled to the Maine island of Vinalhaven, located 15 miles southeast of Rockland, while staying with Isabel Lachaise. He was immediately taken with the locale which reminded him of Nova Scotia, writing to Mrs. Lachaise that it was a “most beautiful place, quaint” which had “lots to paint” due to its direct ocean access. Deciding it would be his “next location,” Hartley returned in 1938 for the entire summer. (Marsden Hartley letter to Isabel Lachaise, October 18, 1937, Hartley-Isabel Lachaise letters, Lachaise Foundation) That November, he wrote his patron Adelaide Kuntz that he was “most happy” with how things went on the island. “I have a whole row of forceful sea pieces – two of them crashing seas on rocks and I am delighted with myself to come so near to the real thing and all so alive and spontaneous. I know it will make a lot of noise in N.Y. . . . at Walker’s place.” (Marsden Hartley letter to Adelaide Kuntz, November 7, 1937, Marsden Hartley Papers MSS 578, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut) Following in a long tradition of landscape painters in Maine, yet infusing the scene with a modern emphasis on direct, emotional manifestation, Hartley’s works such as Crashing Wave, Vinalhaven anticipate the emergence of Abstract Expressionism in the decades to come.
A Maine native, Hartley began his career with a series of local landscapes with a focus on short, energetic brushstrokes before traveling extensively to locales including Berlin, Paris, Santa Fe and Bermuda. Hartley returned to Maine in 1937 and set out famously to become “the painter from Maine.” Explaining his fascination with the trees and rocks of the area, Hartley once poetically wrote, “in them rests the kind of integrity I believe in and from which source I draw my private strength both spiritually and esthetically.” (as quoted in On Art, New York, 1982, p. 199) Looking to the Maine landscape for his primary inspiration, Hartley followed in the tradition of several nineteenth century American artists, including Fitz Henry Lane, Frederic Edwin Church and especially Winslow Homer. The emphasis on the overwhelming power of the ocean in Homer’s iconic Prout’s Neck paintings can be seen as a key influence on works such as Crashing Wave, Vinalhaven. Indeed, Hartley himself wrote in praise of Homer’s “Yankeeism of the first order” and his “fierce feeling for truth, a mania, almost for actualities.” (as quoted in “An Ambivalent Prodigal: Marsden Hartley as ‘The Painter from Maine,’” Marsden Hartley’s Maine, Waterville, Maine, 2017, p. 158)
Yet, while Homer remained firmly rooted in a careful attention to realism, Hartley expresses his spiritual appreciation for the Maine landscape through more visceral, gestural technique. The expressive, dark contours of Hartley’s work from this period have been likened to “drawing with paint.” Isabelle Duvernois and Rachel Mustalish explain, “His use of a palette knife to spread and score the paint as well as various other tooling techniques all suggest great gestural freedom, which he employed to make tangible the rugged terrain and unrelenting force of the elements.” (“’The Livingness of Appearances:’ Materials and Techniques of Marsden Hartley in Maine,” Marsden Hartley’s Maine, p. 118) Utilizing choppy, vertical brushwork in depicting the foaming, white-capped sea against the jutting rocks, he creates physical and psychological tension in the present work. Employing flattened forms with thick, black outlines, Hartley adds his characteristically unique monumentality in Crashing Wave, Vinalhaven.
A Maine native, Hartley began his career with a series of local landscapes with a focus on short, energetic brushstrokes before traveling extensively to locales including Berlin, Paris, Santa Fe and Bermuda. Hartley returned to Maine in 1937 and set out famously to become “the painter from Maine.” Explaining his fascination with the trees and rocks of the area, Hartley once poetically wrote, “in them rests the kind of integrity I believe in and from which source I draw my private strength both spiritually and esthetically.” (as quoted in On Art, New York, 1982, p. 199) Looking to the Maine landscape for his primary inspiration, Hartley followed in the tradition of several nineteenth century American artists, including Fitz Henry Lane, Frederic Edwin Church and especially Winslow Homer. The emphasis on the overwhelming power of the ocean in Homer’s iconic Prout’s Neck paintings can be seen as a key influence on works such as Crashing Wave, Vinalhaven. Indeed, Hartley himself wrote in praise of Homer’s “Yankeeism of the first order” and his “fierce feeling for truth, a mania, almost for actualities.” (as quoted in “An Ambivalent Prodigal: Marsden Hartley as ‘The Painter from Maine,’” Marsden Hartley’s Maine, Waterville, Maine, 2017, p. 158)
Yet, while Homer remained firmly rooted in a careful attention to realism, Hartley expresses his spiritual appreciation for the Maine landscape through more visceral, gestural technique. The expressive, dark contours of Hartley’s work from this period have been likened to “drawing with paint.” Isabelle Duvernois and Rachel Mustalish explain, “His use of a palette knife to spread and score the paint as well as various other tooling techniques all suggest great gestural freedom, which he employed to make tangible the rugged terrain and unrelenting force of the elements.” (“’The Livingness of Appearances:’ Materials and Techniques of Marsden Hartley in Maine,” Marsden Hartley’s Maine, p. 118) Utilizing choppy, vertical brushwork in depicting the foaming, white-capped sea against the jutting rocks, he creates physical and psychological tension in the present work. Employing flattened forms with thick, black outlines, Hartley adds his characteristically unique monumentality in Crashing Wave, Vinalhaven.