Artwork
Landscape, New Mexico
Landscape, New Mexico is an oil painting by the American Impressionist artist Marsden Hartley. It dates from 1919 and is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
About this work
Technique & Style
The composition reduces natural motifs to flat, geometric planes, aligning with the modernist tendency to distill landscape into essentialized shapes.
Executed in 1919, Landscape, New Mexico is an oil painting on canvas measuring 68.9 cm in height and 88.6 cm in width. Hartley's handling emphasizes bold, simplified forms and a restricted earth-toned palette, evoking the arid expanse of the New Mexico terrain. The composition reduces natural motifs to flat, geometric planes, aligning with the modernist tendency to distill landscape into essentialized shapes.
Brushwork is restrained yet deliberate, with visible, directional strokes that articulate contours without dissolving into descriptive detail. Stylistically, the painting reflects Hartley's American modernist approach, foregrounding structure over atmospheric effect.
History & Provenance
Landscape, New Mexico was created by Marsden Hartley in 1919. The work is an oil painting on canvas, measuring 68.9 centimeters in height and 88.6 centimeters in width. It depicts a mountainous landscape characteristic of the artist's engagement with the American Southwest during that period.
The painting is currently held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it remains part of their permanent display of early 20th-century American art. No specific commission details or intermediate ownership history prior to its current location are provided in the available records.
Overview
Marsden Hartley created "Landscape, New Mexico" in 1919, an oil painting that captures a distinctive Western American environment. This work is characterized by its depiction of a rugged, arid terrain. The painting is currently part of the collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, representing a period in Hartley's career influenced by his travels through the American Southwest.
Subject & Meaning
The painting presents a stark desert vista, featuring prominent rocky formations and gnarled trees that cast deep shadows across the foreground. Bold applications of red, green, and blue pigments define the landscape's rough textures. In the distance, the faint outlines of mountains recede into a pale, expansive sky, conveying the vastness and austere beauty of the New Mexico wilderness.
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Artist & collection
Artist
Marsden Hartley was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist. Hartley developed his painting abilities by observing Cubist artists in Paris and Berlin.
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