Ich bin nicht ein Berliner: A Reconsideration of Marsden Hartley's Portrait of a German Officer
Sean Kramer (FacultyAdvisor: Marni Kessler)
Art History
Figure I7 8artley9 Marsden7 Portrait of a German Officer. Alfred ;tie
236 German Officer with a formal analysis of This painting, executed in November 1914, the painting. I then use semiotic theory to shows Hartley's assimilation of both Cubism begin to unpack notions of a singular, (the collagelike juxtapositions of visual fragments) and German Expressionism (the "correct" interpretation of the painting coarse brushwork and dramatic use of bright and to emphasize the multiform nature of colors and black). In 1916 the artist denied that reception. In this section, I seek to the objects in the painting had any special establish that the artist's personal meaning (perhaps as a defensive measure to connection to the artwork is not ward off any attacks provoked by the intense anti-German sentiment in America at the time). necessarily the most important However, his purposeful inclusion of medals, interpretive guideline for working with banners, military insignia, the Iron Cross, and this image. I then use examples of letters the German imperial flag does invoke a specific and numerals within the work to sense of Germany during World War I as well illustrate the plurality of cultural and as a collective psychological and physical linguistic processes which inform portrait of a particular officer.1 viewership of the painting. Meanings in a text, I posit, rely on the interaction between the contexts of the viewer and of This quotation comes from a section the author. These meanings consequently of the description that accompanies an change as we pass from the creation of image of Marsden Hartley's Portrait of a the work of art to the contemporary German Officer from late 1914 (fig. 1) on consumer—i.e. the viewer. Still, semiotics the Metropolitan Museum of Art's official often only concerns itself with a specific, website. I use this description here ideal viewer and for that reason the because to me it represents a tendency in theory only allows for a finite number of recent scholarship to privilege the artist's interpretations. (Marsden Hartley's) biography as well as a precise historic moment (the beginning I conclude with a postmodern months of World War I) in interpretations analysis, as I feel such an analysis of this painting.2 My main purpose is not addresses the discordant, almost to critique scholarship but rather to cacophonous interplay of meanings which reopen the potential for exploring Hartley's Portrait visually suggests. meaning within the painting that Postmodernism, in many ways, deals with biographical and socio-historic readings the processing and reprocessing of might otherwise overlook. sources, imagery, and borrowed material on all levels of consciousness. Therefore, I I begin my own reading of Portrait of a examine Hartley's quotations from preexisting visual sources and his "Portrait of a German Officer" Metropolitan engagement with various forms of Museum of Art, accessed April 5, 2012, spectacle in pre-Great War Berlin as seen http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the- in Portrait of a German Officer. Finally, I collections/210008711. consider the fragmented (literally and 2 Throughout this essay, I refer mainly to the work of metaphorically) subject of the painting a handful of art historians, namely, Bruce Robertson, William H. Robinson, Patricia McDonnell, Jonathan and complicate the neat, one-on-one Weinberg, and Donna Cassidy. These historians, associations which scholars often make however, also note the work of others which I feel between the objects represented on the compelled to mention. These include, but are not canvas and a specific person in Hartley's limited to, Gail R. Scott, Barbara Haskell, and Townsend Ludington. life.
237 Formal Analysis regions of the background hold these Marsden Hartley's Portrait of a shapes tightly in check. German Officer conveys an intricate Other rectilinear objects mirror the complexity which I find simultaneously overall erectness of the painting. In the chaotic and ordered. The main top half of the painting, three narrow bars composition hangs in front of a of alternating black and white each recall decontextualized, though highly textural this linear quality. So too, do the long, black void. The background is essentially narrow shapes that are reminiscent of little more than two long regions of poles and spikes which frame the semi¬ scumbled dark paint on either side of the circle at the very top of the canvas.3 As my canvas. These dark regions of paint only eye travels downward toward the center, give a limited sense of space, an effect I see two narrow and elongated which adds to the cramped and rectangular shapes below a large triangle overcrowded atmosphere of the painting. which also repeat this motif. To the left of The shapes and images in the painting these shapes is another long, thin sliver of likewise are bunched up toward a central, gold which mirrors the left edge of the vertical axis. This axis follows a white line canvas. Just below, another narrow strip from the top center of the painting of gold outlines a path toward the bottom through the vertical bar of a black cross center of the canvas, though this band is directly below; it then traces the outline interrupted by the red, white, and black of of two rectangular shapes which contain an intersecting horizontal flag. Just to the numbers; it later becomes muddled in right of this flag-image, a narrow shaft overlying flag shapes but finally rejoins latticed in white ends in a bulbous, the image along the border of a white- rounded form and suggests a phallus. and-red cross image at the bottom center Two other white forms also near the of the canvas. The arrangement of shapes bottom right corner share the same along the left and right margins of the phallic suggestion. The artist repeats this composition conform to the confines of motif directly above in the red and gold the canvas edges and further emphasizes protrusion emanating from an ambiguous this same verticality. While the green, red, and white circle. 4 While to me establishment of this axis gives the these are the most identifiable references painting a clearly upward orientation, the to linear, phallic imagery in the painting, composition is still overwhelming. The erect orientation of the image nevertheless endows the painting with a Bruce Robertson identifies these shapes as lances sense of a stately vigor that works against while William H. Robinson reasons that they may the otherwise riotous, constrained refer to the pickhelhaubes on the helmets of German soldiers during the First World War. See Robertson, confusion. In fact, I see a sort of imposed Bruce, Marsden Hartley, New York: Harry N. order upon the shapes within the Abrams, Inc., 1995, page 56, and Robinson, William composition. It appears as though the H., "Marsden Hartley's Military," The Bulletin of the images and shapes struggle to break free Cleveland Museum of Art 76 (1989): 14. 4 This motif recalls an interesting statement of from the boundaries of the picture plane Marsden Hartley's: "It was the smell of leather made yet are contained within the painting a man of him. Stiffened his spine, gave him the against their will. Only at the top and orgiastic sense of being without which nothing barely at the bottom do the forms seem to happens, and with which all is as it should be. No one can get through anything being soft all the time." escape. In all other sectors the dark Quoted in Robertson, Marsden Hartley, 63-64.
238 horizontal bands of white and various flag-image in the top half of the painting colors used to render flags also repeat a appears positioned behind other horizontal configuration, which intersects rectangular shapes, yet the viewer cannot the vertical one I have already described. accept—given the undulating manner of The intersection of these two directional its representation—that this flag is lying arrangements further forms a cross-like flatly. The image which these curving bars schema that visually mirrors the actual evoke quite naturally recalls a banner depicted Iron Cross which dominates the flapping in the wind, which contradicts composition. the static nature of the other elements in The painting confounds any sense of the immediate vicinity. The rectangular three-dimensionality and many of the shapes which foreground this waving flag, shapes even seem to compete for the on the other hand, appear motionless and same level on the picture plane. The black seem either to sit on top of the flag (which background is mainly visible only along as we have already seen is impossible) or the peripheral edges. As a result, the to hang at an undefined distance in front painting is in a way suffocating. The of it. This second option is equally black-and-white alternating squares confusing to the eye as the two regions do which form a checker pattern along the appear to be directly touching. As a result, edges dissolve at times into the black area space in this region of the painting of the background, further making remains uncertain. The other flag-image ambiguous any sense of separation toward the lower half of the painting (this among the planes. To a large extent, the one red, white, and black) also repetition of black within the shapes in complicates the spatial arrangement of the foreground confuses a stable reading the overall painting for it does not exhibit of the large regions of black along the any of the same waving characteristics as outer edges of the painting. As I look the other flag near the top. This bottom closely at the image, I also see that the flag appears far more languorous, black strips in the flag-images are actually whereas the top flag flutters energetically. darker than the more charcoal shades of Consequently, the locations of these two the background. To my mind, these black flags appear to differ, though they exist regions in the foreground objects—the within the same painting and appear to be dark bands in both the upper and lower on the same level behind the picture flags, the black Iron Cross in the top plane. This disparity of behavior upsets portion, and the smaller dark shapes any sense of a unifying, temporal setting, directly above—should seem to recede as the viewer cannot even ascertain a more so than do the dark regions of the consistent wind pattern. background. As if to confound the The artist keeps the detail within the viewer's expectation however, the artist painting to an essential minimum. The places these objects in the foreground. viewer is given just enough clues to This intensified darkness makes the recognize certain elements that are objects stand out all the more. representative of flags, banners, medals, The painting contains evident and other objects, but the artist provides instances of overlap, yet these seem to little further information. For the most move and shift and the relationships of part, forms are not even modeled as the intersecting shapes often come into illusionistic or three-dimensional. Tonal question. The waving, black-and-white changes exist within the painting but
239 these seem primarily to be arbitrary and seeping through to the surface. Inversely, in any case do not convey an illusion of this quality is even more strongly the case three-dimensionality. There are few in areas of white (as well as in regions of instances of tonal modulation which other colors) where black is clearly might give three-dimensional form to the present below the surface. This effect is otherwise flat shapes and these occur most noticeable in the white band of the mainly near the top right corner of the lower-middle horizontal flag-image as painting on the images that seem to well as the white tassel shapes toward the portray pikes or flagpoles. In fact, these lower right-hand corner of the painting. value changes achieve a sort of ominous This quality of paint handling only further effect, as though a shadowy presence confuses the other elements of overlap in loomed over and behind the objects in the the painting. painting. This region is the only part of Though the modeling of tones, for the the painting which possesses any hint of a most part, appears to be arbitrary, the cast shadow. The fact that these two color choices do not. Hartley evidently shapes are partially shadowed indicates chooses local colors which relate to me a sort of movement: a figure either specifically to the objects which his emerges from a shadowy area or retreats shapes represent. Accordingly, the colors into one. in the flag-images explicitly refer to the The artist's brushstrokes are clearly flags which they signify.5 The image of the identifiable throughout the entire Iron Cross must also logically be black painting. The paint application is thick with a white border. The gold of the and mobile, which imbues the shapes painted flagpoles is meant to mimic the with a rich texture and increases the gold of actual flagpoles. This principle no sense of a dynamic, moving force. doubt holds true for the white tassels "Straight" lines have borders which slip (lower right), the white feathers (lower and are not clearly defined, such as those left), the white stripes (throughout), the in the triangle shape at the apex of the white diamonds (lower center), and the image. The white-and-blue bars at the white squares (left and right edges). In right-center of the painting demonstrate a my estimation, this mimetic use of variation on this example. The bars do not coloring, as well as the sparse, though have consistent lengths and for that precise use of detail facilitate many of the reason the overall shape does not have a identifications which have become so stable edge. Another type of slippage fundamental to interpretation of this occurs in the brief negative spaces of painting. black paint between many of the colored While black and white are the most regions throughout the entire painting. prevalent colors within the work, primary Hartley does not delineate outlined colors dominate the viewer's attention borders between the regions; rather, he and generate the energy which the accentuates the layers of paint by painting visibly exudes. A muted, jade allowing the black background to show green appears only in three small circular through. These spaces emphasize the shapes and one barely noticeable triangle artificiality of the image. In many of the toward the right middle. Slate blue recurs regions which have black in them, such as the background, the flags, and the Iron Robinson provides a list of these flags which I cite Cross, white can be seen just barely below in my postmodern analysis.
240 throughout the painting in much larger Hartley, in turn, uses this image to refer to areas than the green yet even this color is the death of his friend, von Freyburg. In subdued and seems to act merely as a truth, both von Freyburg and Ronnebeck support for the more dominant hues of were awarded the honor, though red and yellow. Overall, except for the historians are divided regarding whether vivid crimson, the vibrancy of the colors this occurred before von Freyburg's death within the painting is interrupted by the or after.6 Ronnebeck further tells us that seepage of black to the surface. This the checker pattern refers to von formal decision has a neutralizing effect Freyburg's love of chess. The number 4 on the colors and restrains the painting references von Freyburg's regiment in the from becoming overly garish, as the Kaiser Guard. Twenty-four, as Marsden composition already borders on Hartely once told Alfred Stieglitz (also in a overwhelming. Nevertheless, each letter), signifies von Freyburg's age at the colorful shape carries its own pulsating time of his death.7 We also have the spur energy that makes it seem as if someone of von Freyburg's boot and the plume of has caged or glued these objects into his helmet which seem to fit nicely within place against their will. this arrangement of mementos.8 Art Semiotic Analysis historians often repeat these The most overt interpretive guideline identifications which now form the we possess for working with this painting backbone of many interpretations of the may be in the title itself: Portrait of a painting. German Officer. It is the first sign we Thus, from the written title of the encounter. Here, we are told by the author painting to other written, personal that we are looking at a portrait. We are correspondences by the artist and his also told that it is of a German officer. We associates, we have relied largely on often take this statement as undeniable written texts in order to understand a truth and, in turn, that information visual one. These texts, moreover, serve frames our entire investigation of the to reinforce the painting's subject as a painting. We, the viewers, are now able to portrait. Nonetheless, the lack of overt begin identifying each element of the figuration within the painting itself painting in order to establish who exactly complicates its own subject. Figuration this "German officer" is. I do not have to and abstraction work visually with each be the one to say that it is Lieutenant Karl other and against each other in the von Freyburg; that work has already been painting and strain the ideological done. structures which might otherwise Arnold Ronnebeck, the cousin of von Freyburg and another friend of Hartley's Robertson claims von Freyburg received the medal while in Berlin, provides much of the upon his death while Donna Cassidy and William H. information we need to establish this Robinson say he received it the day before he died. See Robertson, Marsden Hartley, 56; Cassidy, context. The art historian has figuratively Marsden Hartley: Race, Region, Nation, (Lebanon, found a cave of gold. Ronnebeck—in his New Hampshire: University Press of New England, correspondence with Duncan Phillips— 2005) 229; and Robinson, "Marsden Hartley's informs us that the Iron Cross shape Millitary" 16. which figures so prominently in the 7 Hartley also once stated that 4 was his house number in Berlin. See Robinson, "Marsden Hartley's painting references the medal which Military," 16. Ronnebeck himself lent to Hartley. 8 Robinson, "Marsden Hartley's Military," 16.
241 characterize these two modes of relationship. How, then, does a twenty- representation. In figuration, we have the first century viewer have access to his possibility for a narrative. In abstraction, experience? Indeed, now we near a on the other hand, we want to deny that century from the events encapsulated by such a narrative exists. In Portrait of a this painting. What is to be our response? German Officer, forms and shapes, which Nothing in my own experience gives me refer overtly to national flags and military the access to the codes or to the "dropped insignia, appear to explode just as they hairpins"11 in the painting. To me, it implode in a manner that cannot be easily remains a sort of inside joke. While the organized into a recognizable figure. Still, motifs of military insignia and German many scholars do read an anatomical nationalism may have certain personal ordering to the image. For instance, Bruce significance to Hartley, these elements Robertson asserts that the arrangement make the painting meaningful to the artist of elements seems to mimic the curvature in a different way than to the viewer. of a torso and hips, with the lower half of Upon the painting's completion, a face reduced to a semi-circle.9 furthermore, Hartley no longer functions Robertson's reading, nevertheless, relies as part of the historical event (the upon the contextual narrative of creation of the artwork), but now joins its biography which the title of the painting host of interpreters. Therefore, even if he suggests. Without the title, I surmise that has special insight given him due to his the reading of the painting as a portrait role as author of the painting, the object is would become much less stable. now separate from him. In temporal Art historian Jonathan Weinberg notes terms, he has become disaggregated from that Hartley's own contemporaries his creation and now his only role in outside of his private circle would likely connection to the painting is that of not have understood much of the spectator. In that light, the identifications particular signification within Portrait of which Hartley might make for each sign a German Officer.10 Indeed, as many or for each element on the canvas are historians even assert, the painting is a merely part of his own interpretation. memorial to a personal, private They do not take us to the end of meaning.
Robertson provides his eloquent description of the We do, as viewers, possess formal elements: "It presents the body of Freyburg— interpretive signals for decoding this text headless—as a battle trophy, larger than life: the in the initials and in the numerals. In the breastplate or cuirass, defined by flags, becomes the bottom left corner the artist depicts the shield behind which the tips of lances project. At lower left and right are a helmet with Freyburg's letters Kv.F. In the center of the canvas, a initials and tassels from the sash, placed to mimic the letter E with a suggested Q are depicted iliac crest of his hips; at the bottom and center, next to the number 4 while the number covering his genitals, is a red cross, with a spur from 24 appears toward the bottom right. The his boot next to it. And over his heart, on a triangular plate from which hangs regimental tags, is the Iron shapes used to render these characters Cross Freyburg won with his death; instead of a head, there is a circle cut in half." Robertson, Marsden Patricia McDonnell references George Chauncey's Hartley, 56. term "dropped hairpins" to indicate subtle messages 10 Weinberg, "Marsden Hartley: Writing on within artwork or literature which signal homosexual Painting," Marsden Hartley, ed. Elizabeth Mankin underpinnings. McDonnell, "Essentially Masculine: Kornhauser et al. (London, New Haven: Yale Marsden Hartley, Gay Identity, and the Wilhelmine University Press, 2002) 130. German Military," Art Journal 56 (1997): 65.
242 are themselves arbitrary linguistic signs, they would function in a text still restricts mostly limited to use in languages the painting's interpretation to originating in Western Europe. In that individuals with access to the visual codes sense, they contain within their own of Euro-American languages. existence the presence of a Western (a Other linguistic signs act similarly confluence of German and American, as within the painting, notably the number 4, we will see below) orthographic system; the number 24, and the letter E. The and the presence of this system thereby letter E appears twice in the painting, excludes most other forms of written which distinguishes it from the other communication. These figures, letters in the lower left. 13 In the first nonetheless, function in the painting as instance where the letter E appears just components of a visual image and not say, below the triangle and cross, a smaller as those printed on the page of a book or letter Q accompanies the larger E, while in in a newspaper. The letters are painted its other incarnation the E stands alone. on. This new context alters their In this manner, the letter E might very communicative role and destabilizes their well function differently in each case; on meaning as pieces of text. But these one hand the letter stands alone while on letters are not depicted separately on the the other, it serves with the letter Q as canvas. They are shown together and in a part of a pair which has a conjunctive certain order. The K and the F too, are meaning. capitalized while the v is lower-cased. In a pictorial sense the numbers (or This arrangement implies a specific the representation of digits, such as the meaning, or a set of specific meanings, numeral 4) possess a greater possibility which simultaneously limits as it un- for variation than do their forms written limits the potential interpretations of out (such as the word four). In reality, these signs. Within the codes of that these letters and numbers engage with Western language system there are only processes of inclusion and exclusion on certain combinations which make sense. cultural and linguistic levels which go far Yet we have two language systems with beyond Hartley's own personal which to potentially work here: English experience. They entail, as a matter of and German. I say this since Hartley was course, all experiences and all histories an American yet many of the painting's which those signs contain in their own first audiences would likely have been right. For one thing, while we might 12 German. Today, however, access to the interpret the character 4 as meaning four, image is open to individuals of many the painting would have originally been more nationalities through journals, seen by many German audiences, for magazines, books, the internet, and other whom this character signifies fier. sources. Thus the potential linguistic However, only one system can act upon codes which inform viewership of the painting are far more numerous. While this opens possibility for new readings, Weinberg indicates that this letter "E" also understanding the letters and numbers as functions as an initial. Where he cites Ronnebeck identifying the letter as a sign for Queen Elizabeth of Greece, the patron of von Freyburg's guard, Weinberg also makes mention that it stands for As Robertson mentions, Hartley had one final Edmund, Hartley's first name before he had it exhibition in Berlin before his return to the United changed to Marsden. See Weinberg, "Writing on States. Robertson, Marsden Hartley, 66. Painting," 130.
243 the painting at a time. The interpretation vocabulary of Cubism, remolds it, and of the character 4 as four necessarily mixes it with his own incarnation of precludes the interpretation of the Expressionism.14 Robertson, McDonnell, character as fier and vice versa. and Weinberg make cases as well for ties Additionally, in the presence of four, there between Hartley and militaristic, is the absence of fier. Similarly, the homosocial undercurrents in Berlin. number 24, which English-speakers read McDonnell in fact explains that Hartley's as twenty-four, might also have been painting interacts with certain motifs of taken to mean by its original audiences in homosexuality that pervaded popular Berlin as fier-und-zwandzig. Though a images of the German military before similar situation exists, the interpretive World War I.1S Still, these artistic and potential is even further complicated in social influences are only two veins of this example since Hartley connects the culture with which Hartley's painting two characters, 2 and 4, to each other. engages, though they are the main two on And so the two numbers act in concert. In which recent scholarship seems to focus. this situation, our interpretation of the 2 Nevertheless, Portrait of a German Officer relies upon our understanding of the 4. clearly engages with other elements of Thus, our interpretation of one element artistic and visual culture. Almost every affects our interpretation of others. On a single object in the painting is an larger scale therefore, our interpretation appropriated image. Indeed, as Roland of the 24 in one section of the painting Barthes would say, "The text is a tissue of consequently affects our interpretation of quotations drawn from innumerable the 4, which stands alone in another centres of culture."16 A strand of this section. The implications are larger with "tissue" which we might consider is the initials Kv.F, however, for they affect Hartley's use of flag imagery. As I have the interpretation of the entirety of the mentioned previously, William H. canvas and not just one single element. Robinson has provided a list of the flags Hence, if we accept that the initials Kv.F which we might expect to find: stand for Karl von Freyburg, then the Many of the color patterns in these number 4 must signify an element which paintings also evoke associations with fits into that interpretation or, in other specific subjects: black-and-white stripes words, it must refer to von Freyburg's with the historic flag of Prussia (and the regiment in the Kaiser Guard, as Ronnebeck states. On the other hand, if Cassidy, Marsden Hartley, 2; Robertson, Marsden we do not accept that fact and return to Hartley, 64; Weinberg, "Marsden Hartley: Writing these initials as formal elements of visual on Painting," 129; also, see museum description from imagery, the possibilities for meaning in the introduction. 15 McDonnell claims, "... during the time that Hartley these letters and numbers open and we lived in Berlin, the German military symbolized are free to construct new interpretations homosexuality. It was a deeply rooted trope on the for the painting which do not rely on street as well as in popular press and international Hartley's biography or on his relationship journalism." McDonnell, "Portrait of Berlin: Marsden Hartley and Urban Modernity in to von Freyburg. Expressionist Berlin," Marsden Hartley, ed. Postmodern Analysis Kornhauser et al. (London, New Haven: Yale University Press), 53. As the museum description cited 16 Barthes, Roland, "The Death of the Author," above as well as several art historians Image, Music, Text, trans. Stephen Heath (New York: note, Hartley engages with the visual Hill and Wang, 1977), 146.
244 Hohenzollern monarchy); black, white, inspiration.18 This Iron Cross itself comes and red in horizontal bands with the from an appropriated image which national flag of the German Empire descends from a long lineage of (adopted in 1871); black, red, and gold appropriations with its own history that horizontal bands with the flag of the exists outside of Marsden Hartley's German Socialist movement (later the sphere of influence. Furthermore, the Weimar and Federal Republic); and blue- cross has not ceased its interaction with and-white diamonds with the flag of culture and history upon Hartley's Bavaria.17 completion of his painting. Honestly, the Hartley appropriates these flags and association of the Iron Cross with the recasts them for his own artistic German military reminds me of the purposes. Though the personal shades of Nazism which hang like a significance of such images might lie shadow over modern history. While that implicitly within his representation of association is obviously not intrinsic to them, Hartley cannot remove the the sign of the Iron Cross itself, nor does it signification already intrinsic to these figure into Hartley's own original use for flags. His representation of various flags the image, I would argue that it is still engages with elements of distinctly now part of the reality which potentially German social and political culture at the informs viewership of Portrait of a beginning of the twentieth century. If German Officer.19 Hartley encountered these flags on Other objects and patterns as well parade in the streets of Berlin, they would function in a similar manner. For have been to him simultaneously a type of instance, the checker pattern from a presence and a reminder of absence for chessboard is evidently cited by the artist. the German states which they were to As noted above, Ronnebeck states that for represent. In this sense, the flag images Hartley the pattern signifies von function within Hartley's painting as Freyburg's love of chess. Perhaps Hartley remnants of borrowed cultures, of was in fact inspired by his intimate appropriated cultures. However, in this knowledge of von Freyburg's pastime. appropriated setting, Hartley converts the Even so, this does not mean that von images of the flags so that they no longer Freyburg is solely responsible for the function as stand-ins for particular game's association with a pattern of German states, they now become elements in his own artistic vocabulary. This vocabulary, furthermore, has Robinson, "Marsden Hartley's Military," 16. 19 personal significance for Hartley and To illustrate this, an artist from recent years, Anthony Viti, has enlisted Hartley's imagery of the becomes interpretable by viewers in Iron Cross in his own work commemorating the different ways. tragedy of AIDS. Here, the Iron Cross is once again Another image clearly appropriated appropriated, just as Hartley has done, and it once again has its meaning changed through use. This is by Hartley is at the very apex of the not the Iron Cross of the German military that composition: the Iron Cross. Ronnebeck Marsden Hartley himself appropriates. No, Viti re- tells us that Hartley uses the medal appropriates Marsden Hartley's already appropriated designed by Schinkel in 1813 as his image of the Iron Cross. See Meyer, Jerry, "Profane and Sacred: Religious Imagery and Prophetic Expression in Postmodern Art," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 65, (Oxford: Oxford Robinson, "Marsden Hartley's Military" 14. University Press, 1997), 33.
245 white-and-black alternating squares. Von with all the banners and motifs of what Freyburg cannot be the only source upon some might call "empty public rhetoric of which Hartley draws for this motif. war and patriotism."21 This active and Further, when I see the pattern, I also energetic city was the Berlin that Hartley think of a racing flag or a mid-century observed while living there intermittently diner's floor tile. While these associations for a period of more than two years.22 For are mundane, banal, and possibly others, nevertheless, Berlin was an irrelevant to the painting, I feel they industrial city that functioned "'with the demonstrate the plurality of sources of regularity of a motor,' a city where (unlike inspiration for any single image. The Walter Benjamin's Paris) people do not other objects, often interpreted as promenade."23 I believe that both of these accoutrements of a German military perceptions of Berlin work upon the uniform, no less exemplify this principle. painting. With its cascading patterns of Hartley cannot, through his painting, have squares, triangles, bars, and curves, securely patented the meaning for these Portrait of a German Officer visually articles of military regalia nor claimed the acknowledges all the teeming activity and monopoly on their signification. In fact, I bustling spectacle which McDonnell contend that what makes such objects so maintains was characteristic of Berlin at clearly identifiable for historians and the time. However, the objects which other viewers is the fact that these images these shapes represent—their have existed for a long time in places signifieds—are all clearly synthetic and other than Portrait of a German Officer. man-made. Their existence in the painting Viewers must have already had access to thus reminds the viewer of production these codes before the painting existed in and industry. As Robertson states, the order for these images to be understood. military uniform itself represents "the Hartley paints a canvas full of imagery most regimented and institutionalized 24 that embraces German military traditions expression of governmental power." and idolizes German soldiers yet, as I Hartley expresses this static rigidity have stated, Hartley himself was within his painting yet he imbues it with a American. Still, McDonnell and Robertson passionate rebellion of that same both note that Hartley found himself quite uniformity. While Robertson posits that in at home in Berlin. McDonnell states that the army, the individual becomes a Hartley seeks to capture the spectacle of a "standardized product," in Hartley's city that was alive and vibrant, teeming painting, the military uniform is 25 with "crowds, colorful pageants, "endowed with a private, erotic power." cleanliness, and beautiful men."20 In The spectacle of the city which Hartley Portrait of a German Officer, captures therefore has two sides to it, one remembrances of these parades abound of voluptuous energy, the other of standardized uniformity. If the military uniform provides the McDonnell makes an accurate assumption; Berlin was a young city and in many ways it was welcoming to and full of outsiders. Jay Winter and Jean-Louis Robert note that "33 percent [were] under the age of Weinberg, "Writing on Painting," 131. twenty," while "about three of every five Berliners 22 McDonnell, "Portrait of Berlin," 39. came from elsewhere". Winter and Robert, Capital 23 Winter and Robert, Capital Cities at War, 48. Cities at War: Paris, London, Berlin 1914-1919 24 Robertson, Marsden Hartley, 63. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) . 25 Robertson, Marsden Hartley, 63.
246 most apparently unifying motif of Portrait human figure from the arrangement of of a German Officer, then the repeated objects. suggestions of buttons, epaulets, helmet Conclusion plumes, and other paraphernalia I began my discussion of Portrait of a formulate a certain military identity for German Officer with a formal analysis in the subject of the portrait. Donna Cassidy order to root my subsequent arguments shows that the military uniform in in the painting itself. The use of two Hartley's painting connotes the theories—semiotics and idolization of the "masculine ideal." 26 She postmodernism—on the other hand, has notes too how Hartley depicts the presented several challenges to my uniform without a body, or the ideal reading of Portrait of a German Officer. without a corporeal subject. Furthermore, One primary challenge in working with I suggest that the subject of the portrait semiotics came from determining does not actually exist. The painting is a essentially whose semiotics. To formulate signifier without a signified. Recent my own discourse, I looked to Ferdinand scholarship nevertheless asserts that Karl de Saussure for help, as well as Rosalind von Freyburg is the subject of the portrait Krauss, Norman Bryson, and Mieke Bal as in order to construct narratives of an ill- I tried to blend my understanding of these starred (possibly unrequited) love story differing approaches into my own between the artist and his deceased synthesis of the theory. I found it friend. However, while I have maintained necessary to restrict my analysis to a that this is a possible interpretation, it is treatment of the letters and numerals or, not the only one. Moreover, I do not the elements of written language believe that the painting fundamentally represented in the painting. In my requires a subject to unify its contents estimation, art historians often use these under the status of portrait. What if we let elements merely to reinforce their the subject remain iin-unified, fragmented interpretations which favor the artist's beyond recuperation? This seems more in biography and scholars often seem to keeping with the visual and formal overlook the characters' potential elements of the painting itself. All of the implications as signs. Still, in order to objects which we have discussed appear maintain a clear and succinct argument, I as fragments of a whole, thrown into a felt obliged to occlude an examination of jumble, a flurry of discordant imagery. the roles of other signs which also exist in Letters, tassels, feathers, flags, shapes, the painting but which function medals, and all manner of objects differently, in particular the flag-images. bombard the viewer on all levels of I sought then to address the flag- representation. They exist on a visual images as objects of appropriation by the battlefield within the image. Still, where is artist in my postmodern approach to the the subject in all of this? If clothes, flags, painting. My obstacles with using and medals create the identity of the postmodernism to read this image subject, then we have the identity without primarily sprang from my own the person. For no person is at all temptations to place the painting within represented, despite the aforementioned the context of Hartley's biography. efforts by art historians to render a Several sources which I considered, including McDonnell, Robertson, Cassidy, Cassidy, Marsden Hartley, 229. and Weinberg, deal with Hartley's visual
247 quotation and appropriation, though they McDonnell, Patricia and Marsden Hartley. mostly broach the subject from "Marsden Hartley's Letters to Franz biographical perspectives of Hartley as an Marc and Wassily Kandinsky 1913¬ individual. This tendency seemed directly 1914." Archives of American Art at odds with my previous semiotic Journal 29 (1989): 35-44. analysis in which I sought to separate McDonnell, Patricia. "Portrait of Berlin: interpretation of the painting from the Marsden Hartley and Urban artist's biography. My goal became, Modernity in Expressionist Berlin." therefore, to show how several elements Marsden Hartley. Edited by Elizabeth in the painting itself demonstrate Mankin Kornhauser with Ulrich Hartley's appropriation and distillation of Birkmaier et al. London, New Haven: imagery and how the painting, not Yale University Press, 2002. Hartley, interacts with specific visual and Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Portrait of cultural processes. a German Officer." Accessed April 5, 2012. Bibliography http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/se Bal, Mieke and Norman Bryson. arch-the-collections/210008711. "Semiotics and Art History." The Art Robertson, Bruce. Marsden Hartley. New Bulletin 73 (1991): 174-208. York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1995. Barthes, Roland. "The Death of the Robinson, William H. "Marsden Hartley's Author." In Image, Music, Text. Edited Military." The Bulletin of the Cleveland and translated by Stephen Heath. Museum of$Art 76 (1989): 2-26. New York: Hill and Wang, 1977. Rumbold, Sir Horace. The War Crisis in Berghahn, V. R. Imperial Germany 1871¬ Berlin July-August 1914. London: 1918: Economy, Society, Culture, and Constable and Company Ltd, 1940. Politics. New York, Oxford: Berghahn Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in General Books, 1994. Linguistics. Translated by Wade Cassidy, Donna. Marsden Hartley: Race, Baskin. New York, Toronto, London: Region, and Nation. Lebanon, New McGraw Hill Book Company, 1959). Hampshire: University Press of New Walker, Hudson D. "Marsden Hartley." England, 2005). The Senyon Review 9 (1947): 248¬ Krauss, Rosalind. "In the Name of 259. Picasso." October 16 (1981): 5-22. Winter, Jay and Jean-Louis Robert. Capital McDonnell, Patricia. Dictated by Life: Cities at War: Paris, London, Berlin Marsden Hartley's German Paintings 1914-1919. Cambridge: Cambridge and Robert Indiana's Hartley Elegies. University Press, 1997. Minneapolis: Frederick R. Weisman Weinberg, Jonathan, "Marsden Hartley: Art Museum, 1995. Writing on Painting." Marsden McDonnell, Patricia. "'Essentially Hartley. Edited by Elizabeth Mankin Masculine': Marsden Hartley, Gay Kornhauser with Ulrich Birkmaier et Identity, and the Wilhelmine German al. London, New Haven: Yale Military." Art Journal 56 (1997): 62¬ University Press, 2002. 68.
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