Charles Sheeler's imprecise precisionism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3852328 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mark Rawlinson (0000-0002-9775-4081, University of Nottingham, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2004 |
| Volume | 2 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 470-486 |
| Publication date | 2004-12-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Comparative American Studies An International Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1477-5700 • E-ISSN: 1741-2676 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1477570004048082 |
| OpenAlex | W1976996015 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 4 |
In this article I address the significance of a series of images of New York skyscrapers fundamental to the work of American modernist painter and photographer Charles Sheeler (1883–1965). The article examines three works – a photograph, a drawing and a painting – produced between 1919–23 of the same scene: the rear of the Park Row Building, Manhattan. I argue that these images introduce imprecisions that disrupt the notion of Sheeler as the pre-eminent Precisionist artist. Following aspects of Theodor Adorno's aesthetic theory, I suggest that Sheeler's works adopt the language of rationalization whilst remaining critical of it. As such, the more positive conceptions of Sheeler's skyscraper works are juxtaposed against the actuality of the imprecision in the works, a dialectical move that unveils a negative critique of the rationalized culture of American modernity
Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Dialectic · Epistemology · Modernity · Painting · Sociology · Art, Politics, and Modernism · Philosophy · Photography and Visual Culture · Visual Culture and Art Theory
| Highly cited | No |
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