Künste Medien Ästhetik 1/2015 - 1 Andrea Diederichs Precisionism and its Involvement with Sociological Matters during the Machine Age Charles Sheeler’s American Landscape and Classic Landscape* Precisionist paintings are often seen as positive com- Nevertheless, they only scratched the surface, so a mentary, in contrast to negative feelings associated comprehensive examination of this aspect of with society’s modernization1. They mainly survey Sheeler’s work is yet to be delivered. A recent publi- urban and architectural landscapes, but their reper- cation by renowned technology historian David E. Nye toire also encompasses portrayals of the vernacular continues the afore mentioned affirmative approach, and interior. Precisionism captivates the viewer’s claiming that “Sheeler’s aesthetic not only embraced interest through meticulously precise renderings of the Ford factories but linked them to a developing the depicted2. American taste for the vernacular tradition […] Sheeler This essay will examine Precisionism as the critical deemphasized the assembly line itself, for mass voice in a modern though delicate American society. production was a radical break with craft tradition”7. The main question addressed is how shifting social, Despite the research that has so far been done, technological and economic environments find visual approaching Sheeler’s oeuvre with regard to a transfer into the art of Charles Sheeler. This recon- glorification of technology rather than seeing its de- struction will reveal the ambiguity of Precisionism by humanizing and disruptive notions is still a common showing how it propagates progress’ achievements, way to evaluate his work and even Precisionism its strive for efficiency, and how the artist manages to altogether. illustrate the reverse of a profit-driven process. Focus I want to propose a more nuanced perspective, will be on Sheeler’s paintings American Landscape working out the complicated perception that Sheeler (1930) and Classic Landscape (1931)3. had of industry and its working methods. Sheeler’s approach is multidimensional and I argue he offers us The Precisionist approach two possible views on the Machine Age that can During the 1980s and 1990s academic research re- cohabitate. discovered Precisionism, but the majority of scholars Those of his paintings and photographs which followed in the footsteps of Michael Friedman’s originated during the Great Depression, do more than affirmative approach, which he described in his 1960 simply illustrate depictions of historic, economic and discourse “The Precisionist View”4. They mostly political turmoil. They bear witness to the achieve- continued to read a positivist notion toward technol- ments of progress. They are contemporary witnesses ogy and the machine into Sheeler’s work, especially that give account of progress’ ambiguity. On the one those works that emerged out of his commission for hand they refer to the fascination toward all that has the Ford Motor Company5. Nevertheless, scholars like technically been achieved and created by mankind, Karen Lucic, Carol Troyen, Erica E. Hirshler, Miles but they much more strongly also call to mind the lack Orvell or Sharon L. Corwin have proposed a more of the human element in Sheeler’s work. His paintings nuanced approach and perspective on Sheeler’s art, of the Machine Age therefore reveal advancement’s perceiving indications of uneasiness, ambivalence negative side effects for human existence. They and anxiety6. These authors examined the artist’s explicitly deal with man’s role in this automated world interrelation to technological progress within his time and do not merely function as documents of glori- and unveiled an apparent dichotomy, especially with fication and fascination8. Describing a technology- the obvious attraction to industry and technology and and socio-critical involvement, these art works the absence of the human being in Sheeler’s work. demand a cultural scientific survey of the portrayal Andrea Diederichs Precisionism and its Involvement with Sociological Matters kunsttexte.de 1/2015 - 2 and non-portrayal of technologies’ self-destructive complexes of its time – a self-sufficient functioning potential and their consequences for human beings. environment of its own: Claiming that Precisionism merely documents the Occupying over eleven hundred acres, with twenty- mechanization of work processes would add a one- three main buildings and dozens of subsidiary dimensionality that fails to do justice to this much structures, ninety-three miles of railroad track, and more complex and multi-faceted artistic style, as twenty-seven miles of conveyors moving raw Precisionism pre-formulates the social and societal materials, the Rouge employed about seventy-five consequences of a modern society which depends on thousand people12. technology. Artists like Charles Sheeler do not solely The plant enabled Henry Ford to create his visionary propagate and idealize the industrial system, nor do city of efficiency, cleanliness, order and progress. But they merely use their artistic sensibility to document it also was a place of dullness, repetition, deskillment, its production methods and processes. Rather, he observation and spying, with a lot of mental and time also reveals the problems caused by a forced pressure put on the individual worker13. mechanical autonomy – the desensitization caused by This article will show that the dehumanizing factors the standardization of mass production, the marginal- are still frequently overlooked, but nevertheless subtly ization of the human workforce and its emphasis on portrayed. An immanent examination will reveal that maximizing efficiency. I argue that Sheeler used his Sheeler’s critical commentary is visually transported art as an instrument to expose these negative effects through the rhetorical devices of oversubscription and and to comment on the human workforce’s dispens- omission. ability, with its de-qualification and anonymity. Furthermore, it is worthwhile mentioning why it is still On American Landscape so difficult to properly evaluate and understand the This painting is based on Sheeler’s photograph Ford work of Sheeler. Part of this owes to the fact that the Plant, River Rouge, Canal with Salvage Ship (1927)14. photographs he took for the Ford commission served Whereas the photo had a vertical format, Sheeler as basis for his most famous works Classic Land- chose a horizontal picture size for his oil painting. The scape and American Landscape9. In these paintings latter is divided into fore-, middle- and background, Sheeler dealt with what he had experienced and seen with its focus being on “the Rouge’s boat slip and the at the plant. They were painted four, respectively five cement plant on its eastern shore […]”15. The picture years after the commission: is harshly cropped at its edges, with the viewer I was out there on a mission of photography. realizing that this world of manufactured technology Period. And I got there, I took a chance on opening expands indefinitely – thus strengthening the River the other eye and so then I thought maybe some Rouge’s vastness and greatness. The extreme wide pictures could be pulled out. But I had to come angle Sheeler applied results in a panoramic home, and it was several years later that they had impression that may at first evoke memories of the really digested, and they started coming out; there vast landscapes of the Luminists. Images like Martin were four pictures eventually10. Johnson Heade’s Summer Showers (1865–70) or Even though these images were not part of the con- James Augustus Suydam’s Paradise Rocks, Newport tract, it is probable that he did not intend to openly (1860) come to mind16. But it would belie Precisionist offend his commissioners, therefore applying a rather images to simply read them as reminiscences of the subtle and not easily decoded way of criticism to American artistic past. reveal his own socio- and techno-critical approach11. The observer’s viewpoint is undetermined; he These two paintings portray Henry Ford’s famous seems to be hovering in the air. The structure of the River Rouge Plant. He painted those oil works amidst painting changes between linear and planar: Whereas the gloomy years of the Great Depression. This Plant more painterly depicted portrayals of elements such was one of the most innovative and modern as water, sky and earth are characterized by no sharply defined edges, architectural and technical Andrea Diederichs Precisionism and its Involvement with Sociological Matters kunsttexte.de 1/2015 - 3 parts such as building components and mechanic massiveness symbolizes the perfection of mechanical devices have been modeled more clearly with each power. It furthermore portrays an age characterized showing a carefully rendered border. This contrast by the obsession with largeness, productivity and results in two differing pictorial elements. Rather ran- time pressure, therefore enhancing the notion of a domly appearing ’natural’ elements are opposed to disruptive and dehumanizing technology. Additionally, strict, clear and tidied architectural and technical he applied several modifications: the white cloth that portions, and it is the pictorial manner of these is attached to the crane is not static anymore but ‘natural’ parts that assures the viewer to be dealing blows in the wind, adding a feeling of movement and with a painting. Still, no brushstrokes can be dis- change. The sky is much more distinct and dissected, covered. The image’s overall stasis is interrupted by massive fumes polluting the atmosphere. The water’s elements such as the smooth flow of the artificially flow is smoother in the middle of the stream, giving an tamed stream, the wafting piece of cloth, the small almost static reflection of the smokestack. Further- figure walking along the tracks, or the billows of more, the two rightmost wheels of the crane are smoke which all bring in a notion of temporality. placed off the tracks, adding an aspect of fragility to When comparing the photograph to the painting it the entire scene. The painting’s overall impression is becomes obvious that Sheeler cropped the latter one of immaculateness, especially along the shore.