Monday Morning Museum: Charles Demuth

Self-Portrait, 1907 by Charles Demuth

Charles Demuth – Thursday 8 November 1883 Lancaster, Pennsylvania to Wednesday 23 October 1935 Lancaster, Pennsylvania

American Precisionist Painter

I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold, 1928

"This painting pays homage to a poem by William Carlos Williams. Like Marsden Hartley's "Portrait of a German Officer" and Arthur Dove's "Ralph Dusenberry," this portrait consists not of a physical likeness of the artist's friend but of an accumulation of images associated with him — the poet's initials and the names "Bill" and "Carlos" that together form a portrait.

Williams' poem "The Great Figure" describes the experience of seeing a red fire engine with the number 5 painted on it racing through the city streets. While Demuth's painting is not an illustration of Williams's poem, we can certainly sense its "rain/and lights" and the "gong clangs/siren howls/and wheels rumbling." The bold 5 both rapidly recedes and races forward in space, and the round forms of the number, the lights, the street lamp, and the arcs at the lower left and upper right are played against the straight lines of the fire engine, the buildings, and the rays of light, infusing the picture with a rushing energy that perfectly expresses the spirit of the poem." – Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Monday’s Artist – Georges de la Tour
Next Monday’s Artist – Jean-Antoine Houdon

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