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Synthesizing Transcendental Painting: Race, Religion, and Aesthetics in the Art of Emil Bisttram, Raymond Jonson, and Agnes Pelton

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Synthesizing Transcendental Painting: Race, Religion, and Aesthetics in the Art of Emil Bisttram, Raymond Jonson, and Agnes Pelton ABSTRACT Title of Document: SYNTHESIZING TRANSCENDENTAL PAINTING: RACE, RELIGION, AND AESTHETICS IN THE ART OF EMIL BISTTRAM, RAYMOND JONSON, AND AGNES PELTON Nathan K. Rees, Doctor of Philosophy, 2010 Directed By: Professor Sally M. Promey, professor of religion and visual culture, professor of American studies, and deputy director of the Institute of Sacred Music, Yale University, formerly professor of art history, University of Maryland, College Park. Three core artists of the Transcendental Painting Group, Emil Bisttram (1895- 1976), Raymond Jonson (1891-1982), and Agnes Pelton (1881-1961), employed modernist painting styles in an attempt to create spiritually significant art. Although previous scholarship has focused on the artists’ formal innovations, their work was imbricated in contemporary cultural politics, actively participating in discourses surrounding conceptions of race, religion, aesthetics, and the interrelation of each of these realms. Each drew from sources in metaphysical religious literature, especially Theosophy and related traditions. Their theories of ideal aesthetics for religious art, based on the supposition that artists could convey direct emotional experience through abstraction, reflected the Theosophical drive to overcome materialist philosophy by transcending the limits of physicality. Bisttram, Pelton, and Jonson also internalized Theosophy’s promotion of syncretism as a guiding principle, and followed metaphysical religionists in advocating a combinative appropriation from diverse religious and artistic traditions. In particular, they relied on Theosophical conceptions of the importance of gleaning allegedly ancient wisdom as they addressed American Indian cultures of the Southwest. Their art created a hybrid iconography, combining symbolic elements from metaphysical religious sources with imagery derived from Southwest Indian cultures, asserting an integral relationship between the two, and advancing the perceived agreement between Native American and Theosophical religious systems as evidence of the truth of the latter. In addition to expressing metaphysical interpretations of Native American religions in their work, they promoted a transcultural aesthetic that posited American Indian art as an archaic and therefore “authentic” means of expressing of spiritual wisdom; they modeled their own abstract aesthetics in response to their encounters with Indian art. As they appropriated from Native American sources, they created images that celebrated the indigenous peoples of the Southwest as possessing unique and important religious knowledge. Their intent, however, was to advance Western culture forward by drawing from ancient sources to create a new, synthetic religion. The result was an art that referenced American Indian cultural practices and art traditions, but gave no voice to the original Native American artists, claiming to transcend the sphere of cultural significance and approach the level of “universal” meaning. SYNTHESIZING TRANSCENDENTAL PAINTING: RACE, RELIGION, AND AESTHETICS IN THE ART OF EMIL BISTTRAM, RAYMOND JONSON, AND AGNES PELTON By Nathan K. Rees Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2010 Advisory Committee: Professor Sally Promey, Chair Professor June Hargrove Professor Meredith Gill Professor Jason Kuo Professor John Caughey © Copyright by Nathan K. Rees 2010 The dissertation that follows has had referenced materials removed in respect for the owner’s copyright. A complete version of this document, which includes said referenced material, resides in the University of Maryland, College Park’s library collection. ii Acknowledgements This project would have been impossible without the help of numerous individuals and institutions. I am deeply indebted to the entire faculty, staff, and graduate student body of the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland, College Park, for their constant support. Each of the members of my dissertation committee has provided invaluable assistance, for which I am profoundly grateful. I wish to particularly thank Professor Sally Promey for her unwavering support as my advisor during her transition from the University of Maryland to Yale University. I also express my sincere appreciation to the many individuals who have generously facilitated my research at institutions around the country. I thank the staff of the Archives of American Art in Washington, DC; the Jonson Gallery of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque; the Harwood Museum, Taos; the Palm Springs Art Museum; and the Brigham Young University Museum of Art for their patience and assistance. Chip Ware, of the Jonson Gallery, deserves special mention, both for his tremendous help, and for his timely warning that the Raymond Jonson Archives were about to become inaccessible during the gallery’s change of location. Lastly, I wish to thank the family of George Levitine, former chair of the Department of Art History and Archaeology, for their generosity in funding the Levitine Fellowship, which was an invaluable help in my timely completion of the dissertation. iii Table of contents Chapter One Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 The Artists of the Transcendental Painting Group ......................................................... 4 Approaches to Religion in the Transcendental Painting Group.................................... 13 Scholarship on Religion in the Art of the Transcendental Painting Group .................. 21 Theorizing Primitivism ................................................................................................. 27 Politics of Representation in the Art of the Transcendental Painting Group ................ 33 Terminology .................................................................................................................. 37 The Transcendental Painting Group and Primitivism ................................................... 40 Organization of the Dissertation ................................................................................... 51 Chapter Two Agnes Pelton and the Indians of the Southwest: Ancient Wisdom and Modern Expression ........................................................................................................... 54 Synthetic Art and Synthetic Religion ........................................................................... 55 Shambhala in the Southwest ......................................................................................... 64 Past and Future: Ancient Ruins in Pelton’s Abstract Paintings .................................... 69 “Cultural Evolution” in Science and Theosophy .......................................................... 73 Turning from East to West: Cultural Evolution in America ......................................... 78 Native Americans as Remnants of the Fourth Root Race............................................. 86 Pelton’s Religious Aesthetic ....................................................................................... 104 Where “Deep Streams Flow, Endlessly Renewing” ................................................... 115 Chapter Three Emil Bisttram: the Art of Creative Synthesis .................................... 133 Sources of Bisttram’s Art and Religion ...................................................................... 137 Metaphysical Symbolism in Bisttram’s Depictions of Indian Dances ....................... 144 Bisttram’s Vanishing Indians ...................................................................................... 153 Finding Metaphysical Meaning in Native American Ceremonial Dance ................... 157 Religious Art of the New Age .................................................................................... 164 Natural Symbolism ..................................................................................................... 169 Hegemonic Syncretism ............................................................................................... 179 Chapter Four Indian Abstraction and “Absolute Painting” in Raymond Jonson’s Religious Aesthetic ......................................................................................................... 183 Finding Religion, Finding Abstraction ....................................................................... 186 Native American Sources in Jonson’s Art .................................................................. 191 Expressing Spirituality through Abstraction ............................................................... 211 “Absolute Painting” .................................................................................................... 214 Native American Art and Absolute Painting .............................................................. 223 “The Esoteric and Spiritual in Painting” ..................................................................... 228 Pictographical Compositions ...................................................................................... 234 The Politics of Synthesis in Jonson’s Work ............................................................... 248 Chapter Five Conclusion............................................................................................ 250 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................
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