You know the work — Charles Demuth’s The Figure 5 in Gold — and probably appreciate it viscerally. Even children do, as I write in today’s Wall Street Journal, where I’ve written an anatomy of the painting for the Saturday Masterpiece column.
But there’s so much more to the painting. To wit:
“…It’s the best work in a genre Demuth created, the “poster portrait.” It’s a witty homage to his close friend, the poet William Carlos Williams, and a transliteration into paint of his poem, “The Great Figure.” It’s a decidedly American work made at a time when U.S. artists were just moving beyond European influences. It’s a reference to the intertwined relationships among the arts in the 1920s, a moment of cross-pollination that led to American Modernism. And it anticipates Pop art.”
Read the rest here. And read more about the Masterpiece column here.
Photo Credit: Courtesty Metropolitan Museum of Art