Waxenstein 1933

Curator: Marsden Hartley’s 1933 graphite drawing, “Waxenstein,” presents us with a striking, almost architectural interpretation of a mountain range. Editor: It looks formidable, almost brooding, like some ancient, sleeping giant. The textures, the gradations in pencil…it’s surprisingly moving for what is, essentially, a geometric study. Curator: Indeed. Hartley often returned to landscape, particularly mountains, as subjects capable of conveying deeper emotional or spiritual states. He sought out the sublime in nature, but filtered it through a modernist lens. Editor: The starkness gets to me. Not romantic like a Bierstadt. More raw, honest… like the mountains don’t care who’s looking. He almost reduces it to its core essence, just light and shadow playing across stone. Did he spend much time here, do we know? Curator: Hartley spent time in Bavaria in the early 1930s. The political climate was increasingly turbulent, with the rise of National Socialism, which no doubt influenced his perspective during that period. Editor: Right, the year this was made, things were already sliding. Makes me wonder if that starkness is intentional. Those peaks almost seem like defensive fortifications. Curator: That's insightful. Hartley’s landscapes often become infused with the anxieties and observations of their time. Art historians also read the series that it belongs to as deeply rooted to his queer experience in a historical and social environment. The way the mountain takes on different shapes could be referencing multiple and changing perspectives that one develops to cope and fit in into a society. Editor: You know, there’s a lonely beauty in facing something so immovable, so eternal, as those mountains while all the fragile political realities collapse around you. A sort of refuge. A kind of silent strength that mirrors what one must have within to survive it. Curator: And in representing it, Hartley gives us something to hold on to. A landscape, yes, but also a quiet kind of resilience. Editor: Yes! Ultimately, even in charcoal, mountains outlast empires. Curator: Very well said. A final poignant consideration on the art's context. Editor: That will be my meditation for the day! Thank you.