Painting No. 8 1912 - 1913

Marsden Hartley made Painting No. 8 using paint on canvas. The application here is strikingly direct. With thin washes and linear drawing, Hartley implies a scene of monumental forms with a remarkable economy of means. Notice how the dark pigment pools and drags, telling us much about the texture of the canvas. The painting is so reduced that it becomes almost like a diagram. But what kind of diagram? It is hard to say. The marks in the larger sun-like form at the upper left suggest a personal symbolism. Hartley was deeply engaged with European modernism, where abstraction was often seen as a route to spiritual truth. Yet he was also aware of the price exacted by modernity: the trauma of the First World War, for instance. This work invites us to reflect on the work of painting itself, while also hinting at a much wider realm of human experience. It exemplifies how the act of making can carry profound significance, blurring the lines between fine art and craft.