Abstraction

Hartley traveled to Paris in April of 1912 to study the latest trends in modern art. While there he became part of the Parisian avant-garde and was enthralled by Matisse and Picasso. His focus changed, however, when he became aware of the latest trends taking place in Munich through two sources: Vassily Kandinsky’s newly published book On the Spiritual in Art; and paintings by the French artist Robert Delaunay, who identified with the aesthetic theories of the Blaue Reiter movement in Munich. Hartley met Kandinsky and Blaue Reiter artists in Munich by early 1913. Here, the artist’s use of intense color, applied in broad, often blended and overlapping strokes, conveys a spirit of joy and a reveling in color and form for its own sake that fully resonates with Kandinsky’s paintings of that period.