Painting Number 5 1915

Curator: Welcome. Today, we're looking at Marsden Hartley's "Painting Number 5," created in 1915. It's part of the collection here at the Whitney. Editor: My immediate impression is... turbulent. A dense layering of shapes and colors, almost aggressively so. It feels like visual overload. Curator: Hartley was deeply engaged with the avant-garde scene in pre-war Berlin. The repetitive forms—those iron crosses, the checkerboards, and flags—they are not merely aesthetic choices. They are laden with militaristic and nationalistic symbolism tied to his experiences in Germany and his complex relationship with a Prussian officer. Editor: Absolutely. The iconography screams of military power, and specifically, of a specific national identity. Look at those crosses: stark, iconic. What's striking, though, is the flatness of it all. It lacks any attempt at illusionistic depth. What sort of material engagement allowed him to get these effects? Curator: He employs a very deliberate layering of oil paint to flatten and distort the forms, pushing back against traditional notions of depth. The heavy impasto suggests almost a sculptural approach, even if the composition rejects conventional depth, like a deliberately crude method that reflects on craft while pushing the boundaries of material. It almost resembles folk art. Editor: That crudeness is compelling. It avoids the clean, almost sterile perfection that industrial processes might otherwise yield and delivers raw emotions. I notice, also, how textile-like some parts look. Was he exploring links between art and other commodities during this time, challenging ideas about value through form and material? Curator: Possibly. There’s an emphasis on patterns that recur within everyday commercial design that's worth thinking about: cheap, common, available to everyone, but now placed at the service of what appears to be a deeply personal vision. The symbols become materials in themselves, manipulated to express complex themes of love, loss, and national identity. Editor: It really makes you consider how these images circulated and the sort of visual economy shaping the way we consume identity in that period. A powerful and unsettling work that clearly demonstrates these concerns through the very act of painting. Curator: I concur. Its complex symbolism allows viewers to reconsider national identity's power over the individual. Editor: An image we could keep decoding, even after extended exposure.