Synchromism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Synchromism was an art movement founded in 1912 by American artists Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Morgan Russell.
Synchromism is based on the idea that color and sound are similar phenomena, and that the colors in a painting can be orchestrated in the same harmonious way that a composer arranges notes in a symphony. Macdonald-Wright and Russell believed that by painting in color scales, their work could evoke musical sensations.
The abstract "synchromies" are based on color scales, using rhythmic color forms with advancing and reducing hues. They typically have a central vortex and explode in complex color harmonies.
The first synchromist painting, Russell's Synchromy in Green, exhibited at the Paris Salon des Indépendants in 1913. Later that year, the first synchromist exhibition by Macdonald-Wright and Russell was shown in Munich. Next were exhibits in Paris and, the following year, in New York.
These synchromies are some of the first abstract non-objective paintings in American art, and became the first American avant-garde art movement to gain international attention.
The multicolored shapes of synchromist paintings often resembled those found in orphism, but MacDonald-Wright insisted that synchromism was a unique art form, and "has nothing to do with orphism and anybody who has read the first catalogue of synchromism ... would realize that we poked fun at orphism".
Other American painters experimenting with synchromism included Thomas Hart Benton, Andrew Dasburg, and Patrick Henry Bruce.
[edit] References
- (1999). Synchromism: Morgan Russell and Stanton Macdonald-Wright", illus. (11 color), 29 pp. Hollis Taggart Galleries, NY.
