Yliaster 1932

Marsden Hartley made this painting, Yliaster, with some kind of oil-based medium, and it’s unreal. The dominant mark here is like a hard-edged brushstroke, creating something geometric and totemic. The colours are hot. The warm reds and oranges make me think of land, blood, desert. You can see how the whole painting has come into being through trial and error: I imagine Hartley in his studio, building the image up slowly, shifting, and adjusting the colours and shapes until they feel right. Hartley might have been thinking about transcendence when he made this, maybe even longing. I wonder if he knew what a hard job he was giving his future viewers? The beam of light shooting down from the circular form is just the kind of gesture that communicates feeling, intention, and meaning. It's a painting of the cosmos, and, perhaps, a painting of the psychic landscape, too. It puts me in mind of Hilma af Klint. They are both in conversation with a very old question. What do we do here?