MARSDEN HARTLEY, his quotes on painting art, poems & spirituality by the American painter-artist + biography stories
Marsden Hartley (1877 – 1943), with his artist quotes on his painting art, spirituality and life. Hartley was a famous painter of so-called American Modernism – a hard working artist who traveled a lot through Europe to learn European avant-garde artists scenes in France and Germany in that period. He got then closely connected with the artists and the art of Cézanne and the famous Blue Rider artists (Kandinsky and Franz Marc). Many of his artist quotes here are taken from Hartley’s letters and art-essays.
* At the bottom short biography stories & selected art links for Marsden Hartley, the American abstract painter, famous for his landscape painting & still life. – the editor
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Hartley: ‘Landscape New Mexico’, 1923 |
Marsden Hartly, his quotes on painting art, spirituality & life of the American artist
– I believe until a man has given up himself he has given up nothing – all his knowledge of accepted aesthetics are of no avail until he has stepped aside from them and given up himself – himself only through the eyes of himself. What a problem everlasting then is it not? A life time of breathless endeavor to be the thing and do the thing of his being – So easy to travel along with claques and crowds, voicing vociferously the great discoveries of each – How ineffably difficult, voicing the soul of one man – alone to himself and – then to whomever else hears… .
* source of his artist quote in a: letter to photographer and art-dealer Alfred Sieglitz (who was married with Georgia O’Keeffe , June 1911, Hartley Archive, Yale University; as quoted in ”Marsden Hartley”, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press 1988, New York p. 147.
– What I have to express is not handled with words. It must ‘come’ to the observer. It must carry its influence over the mind of the individual into that region of him which is more than the mind. The pictures must reach inwards into the deeper experiences of the beholder – and mind you they care in no sense religious tracts – there is no story to them or literature – no morals – they are merely artistic expressions of mystical states – these in themselves being my own personal motives as drawn from either special experiences or aggregate ones.
* his artist quote on his painting art, related to spirituality, from a: letter to Alfred Sieglitz, June 1911, Hartley Archive, Yale University; as quoted in ”Marsden Hartley”, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press 1988, New York p. 9.
– … the virtue of Yankee upbringing spiritually speaking is of more downright value to me than any past heritages.
* source of his artist quote, taken from ‘Somehow a Past, 1933-c’, 1939; unpublished manuscript, Hartley Archive, Yale University; as quoted in ”Marsden Hartley”, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press 1988, New York p. 11.
– (I was, fh) happily contended to be climbing the heights and the clouds by the brush method… … rendering the God-spirit in the mountains.
* quote on his painting related to the landscapes he found and painted, in a: letter to Horace Traubel, circa 1908; as quoted in ”Marsden Hartley”, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press 1988, New York p. 18.
– My work embodies little visions of the great intangible… …Some will say he’s gone mad – others will look and say he’s looked in at the lattices of Heaven and come back with the madness of splendor on him.
* source of his biographical artist quote on his religious attitude in life, from: a letter to Seumus O’Sheel, October 10, 1908, Hartley Archive, Archives of American Art; as quoted in ”Marsden Hartley”, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press 1988, New York p. 25.
– The same feeling (Marsden saw a painting of the American famous painter A. Ryder for the first time in his life, fh)) came over me in the given degree as came out of the Emerson’s Essays when they were first given to me I, I felt as I have read a page of the Bible in both cases. All my essential Yankee qualities were brought forth out of this picture and if I needed to be stamped an American this was the first picture that had done this – for it had in it everything that I knew and had experienced about my own New England – even though I had never lived by the sea – it had in it the stupendous solemnity of a Blake (the famous English spiritual painter, William Blake, fh) picture and it had a sense of realism besides that bore such a force of nature itself as to leave me breathless.
* his artist quote, referring to a painting of the famous American landscape painter Ryder and the poetry of Emmerson, taken from his text: ‘Somehow a Past, 1933-c’, 1939, unpublished manuscript, Hartley Archive, Yale University; as quoted in ”Marsden Hartley”, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press 1988, New York p. 26./p>
– It is the incongruous thing in my entire life, this isolation… …My work requires it – but I myself have no need or use for it – Perhaps once on a time I found isolation imperative – I think all chrysalises do – all embryos go for the underside of the leaf in the time of body-change preparing for the final reassertion –resurrection – the establishment of the entity. But now I’ve come up to the outside of my casements.
* his biographical artist quote on his isolation,necessary for his creating job in life, from: ‘Marsden Hartley Revisited or, Were We Really Ever There’, by Peter Plagens, Artforum no.7, May 1969, p. 41.
– They are the gateway for our modern aesthetic development, the prophets of the new time. They are most of all, the primitives of the way they have begun; they have voiced most of all the imperative need of essential personalism, of direct expression of direct experience.
* source of his quote, referring to the religious meaning of artists like Cezanne and the famous American poet Walt Whitman: ‘Whitman and Cézanne’, in “Adventures in the Arts”, New York, Boni Liveright 1921; as quoted in ”Marsden Hartley”, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press 1988, New York p. 34.
– I could never be French, I could never become German – I shall always remain American – the essence which is in me is American mysticism just as Davies declared it when he saw those first landscapes.
* his artist quote, illustrating his travelling through, combined with a solid American identity during his artistic life, in a: letter to A. Stieglitz (husband of the famous woman painter Georgia O’Keeffe, fh) , February 8, 1913; as quoted in ”Marsden Hartley”, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press 1988, New York p. 44.
– ..by getting as close to the true idea of religion, of spirituality as it is possible for us to get… …we would be in possession of the only tangible relationship tot the deity in things.
* source of his artist quote, expressing his strong religious feelings in life and in his painting art, taken from a: letter to Rockwell Kent, August 22, 1912, Archives of American Art; as quoted in ”Marsden Hartley”, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press 1988, New York p. 44.
– The essential of a real picture is that the things which occur in it occur to him in his peculiarly personal fashion… …the idea of modernity is but a new attachment of things universal – a fresh relationship to the courses of the sun and to the living swing of the earth – a new fire of affection for the living essence present everywhere.
* his artist quote on the relation of the necessary identity of a ‘thing’ in painting it, in his : statement for the catalogue of 1914, exhibition at ‘291’, reprinted in ”On art”, p. 62.
– Every painter must traverse for himself that distance from Paris to Aix (the location where Cézanne frequently painted landscapes, fh) or from Venice to Toledo (where El Greco painted and lived many years, fh). Expression is for one knowing its own pivot. Every expressor relates solely to himself – that is the concern of the individualist.
* his artist quote on the very individualistic view of himself as an artist, from his: statement for catalogue of ‘Forum’ exhibition 1916, reprinted in ”On art”, p. 66-67.
– My work has the abstraction underneath it all now & what I deliberately set out to do down here, for this is the perfect realistic abstraction in landscape.
* source of his artist quote on the degree of abstraction in his realized landscape painting art: letter to Alfred Stieglitz, October 9, 1919, Hartley Archive, Yale University; as quoted in ”Marsden Hartley”, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press 1988, New York p. 68.
– They want Americans to be American, and yet they offer little or no spiritual sustenance for their growth and welfare (reaction on the critic that Hartley as an American artist stayed too long in Europe where he stayed and worked for several years, fh) .
* his artist quote, defending his position as American artist, travelling a lot through Europe, in a letter to Adelaide Kuntz, June 23, 1928, Archives of American Art; as quoted in ”Marsden Hartley”, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press 1988, New York p. 81.
– ..the place (Dogtown, Gloucester, Massachusetts, fh) is forsaken and majestically lovely as if nature had at last formed one spot where she can live for herself alone… …(it) looked like a cross between Easter Island and Stonehenge – essentially druidic in it appearance, it gives the feeling that an ancient race might turn up at any moment and renew an ageless rite there.
* source of his artist quote, describing Dog Town where he lived in the home of a native family and painted many famous portraits of them during his long stay, in his written text: ‘Somehow a Past, 1933-c’, 1939, unpublished manuscript, Hartley Archive, Yale University; as quoted in ”Marsden Hartley”, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press 1988, New York p. 90.
– These people have that sort of incandescence, which is peculiar to those who know the meaning of simplicity & humility. They are illumined from within makes them essentially mystical in their sense of life (on the Mason-family in Nova Scotia, where Hartley stayed during 1935 – 1938; he portrayed the family several times, fh) .
* artist quote, describing Dog Town where he lived in the home of a native family: letter to A. Sieglitz, October 28, 1936, Hartley Archive, Yale University; as quoted in ”Marsden Hartley”, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press 1988, New York p. 111.
– For wine, they drank the ocean – for bread, they ate their own despairs; counsel from the moon was theirs – for the foolish contention – Murder is not a pretty thing – yet seas do raucous everything to make it pretty – for the foolish or the brave, a way seas have.
* artist quote, describing Dog Town where he lived in the home of a native family an describing their relation to the sea as fishermen, from: some lines from a poem he wrote on his painting: ‘Fishermen’s Last Supper’ (the Mason family 1940-1941); as quoted in ”Marsden Hartley”, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press 1988, New York p. 113.
– It is never difficult to see images – when the principle of the image is embedded in the soul.
* source of his artist quote in which he relates good images with the soul, in his: a letter to Kuntz, April 4, 1932; as quoted in ”Marsden Hartley”, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press 1988, New York p. 124.
– I see the possibility of being ‘made new’ again and the gift of rebirth is all that lets anyone really live… …The great secret… … is never to get stuck, imprisoned in common social patterns. They always paralyse the real quality of life – the ‘going onward’ is all that matters, and the dead moments in one’s life through trying to be a unit in any society or social concept are terrifying really.
* artist quote on ‘going onward’ with painting as the only thing that matters in his life: letter to Adelaide Kuntz, September 7, 1933; as quoted in ”Marsden Hartley”, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press, 1988 New York p. 168.
– I don’t want to escape via intellectual ruses – I want affirmations via passionate embraces & you can’t have life unless you live it.
* source of his artist quote on ‘living the life': letter to Adelaide Kuntz, November 6, 1935; as quoted in ”Marsden Hartley”, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press, 1988 New York p. 169.
– ..(they) maintain an enviable balance between the material & spiritual worlds (so) they symbolize for me the term ideal. (remark on the Mason family where Hartley stayed, 1938 – 1941) .
* source of his quote, describing the Mason family in Dog Town where he lived in the home of the native family and portrayed them many times – in a very expressive and representational way, in his: letter to Kuntz, September 9, 1936; as quoted in ”Marsden Hartley”, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press 1988, New York p. 124-125.
– I have achieved the ‘sacred’ pilgrimage to Ktaadn MT – exceeding all my expectations so far that I am sort of helpless with words. I feel as if I have seen God for the first time, and find him so nonchalantly solemn.
* his artist quote on being without words because of a religious experience, in: a letter to Adelaide Kuntz, October 24, 1939; as quoted in ”Marsden Hartley”, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press 1988, New York p. 130.
– My work is getting stronger & stronger and more intense all the time… …I have such a rush of new energy & notions coming into my head, over my horizon like chariots of fire that all I want is freedom to step aside and execute them.
* source of his artist quotes, referring to the very expressive portray paintings he did during his stay in Dog Town, the last creative period of his life: a letter to Kuntz, February 2, 1940; as quoted in ”Marsden Hartley”, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press 1988, New York p. 147.
not sourced quotes of Marsden Hartley; famous painter in American Modernism
– My work has the abstraction underneath it all now & what I deliberately set out to do down here, for this is the perfect realistic abstraction in landscape. (1919, artist quote, Marsden Hartley).
– I have always said that you do not see a thing until you look away from it. In other words, an object or a fact in nature has not become itself until it has been projected in the realm of the imagination. Therefore what has been retained in the mind’s eye is what lives. I have seldom or never worked from nature for this reason and so what I see is what I believe to be true, and that becomes the truism of the creative artist. (artist quote by Hartley, from his art essay in 1942, fh)
Marsden Hartley, short biography facts of the famous American painter artist of abstract / representational painting art in landscape and portrait
Hartley created abstract as well as representational paintings, like his later portraits of fishermen and paintings of the wide American landscapes. Marsden Hartley was a deeply spiritual American artist who was strongly inspired and attracted by writings and poems of mystical American poets like Whitman and Emerson. He wrote also spiritual poems himself, as well as essays and diary notes.
Marsden Hartley was an painter who – as an American exception- raveled and painted a lot as emphatic painter in Europe; mainly in Germany and France. So he became very familiar with Cézanne and the Blue Rider artists (Kandinsky and Franz Marc). He strongly admired Kandinsky’s spiritual ideas on art and also Cezanne’s landscape paintings; Hartley stayed quite a while on the locations in France where Cezanne had painted his landscapes some decades agoo. American and European mysticism was an important inspiration source for Hartley’s painting art and life.
Back in America Marsden Hartley became the painter of the huge and rough American – almost modern Romantic – landscapes, brushed in a very firm and expressive way. During his last years he stayed with fishermen and made very expressive, simple and strong portraits of these people. Religion kept always very present in his painting art and in his thoughts.
Hartley had a friendly relation with the photographer Stieglitz who organized many exhibitions for the American Modernism painters like Hartley and Stieglitz’s own – much younger – wife, the famous American woman painter Georgia O’Keeffe.
links for more biography information and life facts of the American painter Marsden Hartley
* biography of the famous American painter artist Marsden Hartley, on Wikipedia
* many art images of Hartley’s paintings: landscape and portrait, as well as still lifes, on Wikiart
