CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 1/8/2020

In 'Marsden Hartley: The Earth Is All I Know of Wonder,' everything is tectonic, object-y and potent

"Canuck Yankee Lumberjack at Old Orchard Beach, Maine" (1940–41) is reproduced from Marsden Hartley: The Earth Is All I Know of Wonder, a surprise staff favorite on our Spring list. Beautifully designed and printed, there's something perfect about it—including a series of commentaries by contemporary painters including Alex Katz, Shara Hughes, Karin Mamma Andersson, David Hockney and Dana Schutz, who writes, "I have a special affinity for Marsden Hartley's paintings of really brawny men in these oddly disjunctive spaces, which he painted in his final years. The men are huge and almost carved out, but at the same time you feel a real tenderness in the way thy are painted, in how the light settles on their bodies. They are incredible, beautiful and strange paintings… Hartley's subjects could seem everyday, but nothing about them feels everyday. Maybe there is something about desire for the subject, or a sense of feeling toward it. His paintings have an immense sculptural quality to them. I have always loved how each brushstroke has its own weight and direction, and begins to build up the subjects. Waves become rocks, clouds are suspended like mammoth dinner plates, and trees resemble dried paintbrushes. Everything is tectonic, object-y and potent."