1917, Marsden Hartley, A Bermuda Window in a Semi-Tropic Character -- de Young Museum (San Francisco)
From the museum label:
After moving to New York City in 1899, Marsden Hartley visited the famous poet Walt Whitman, a kindred spirit who often encoded his gay identity within his poetry through a mystical experience of the visible world. Hartley similarly believed that an artist's subject matter represented a form of self-portraiture, and often used his paintings as vehicles for his own same-sex desires, which he subsumed within a spiritual sensibility.
In the winter of 1916-1917, Hartley traveled to Bermuda, where he was joined by the artist Charles Demuth. A Bermuda Window in a Semi-Tropic Character recalls Paul Cézanne's tabletop still lifes and similar vibrantly colored window paintings by Henri Matisse. However, Hartley's view onto a bay also includes coded male symbolism in the phallic cloud and fruit, as well as the erect flower. His pairings-of walls, curtains, tiebacks, pears, plums, sails, and leaves-are suggestive symbols for couples and coupling that set the stage for the single flowering blossom.
1917, Marsden Hartley, A Bermuda Window in a Semi-Tropic Character -- de Young Museum (San Francisco)
From the museum label:
After moving to New York City in 1899, Marsden Hartley visited the famous poet Walt Whitman, a kindred spirit who often encoded his gay identity within his poetry through a mystical experience of the visible world. Hartley similarly believed that an artist's subject matter represented a form of self-portraiture, and often used his paintings as vehicles for his own same-sex desires, which he subsumed within a spiritual sensibility.
In the winter of 1916-1917, Hartley traveled to Bermuda, where he was joined by the artist Charles Demuth. A Bermuda Window in a Semi-Tropic Character recalls Paul Cézanne's tabletop still lifes and similar vibrantly colored window paintings by Henri Matisse. However, Hartley's view onto a bay also includes coded male symbolism in the phallic cloud and fruit, as well as the erect flower. His pairings-of walls, curtains, tiebacks, pears, plums, sails, and leaves-are suggestive symbols for couples and coupling that set the stage for the single flowering blossom.