Marsden Hartley (Edmund Hartley)
American, 1877­1943
Movements
1915
Oil on canvas
119.7 x 120 cm
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949.544

For this artist, the shapes, colors and lines of Movements suggested the rhythms of music. Its title also refers to the sections or divisions of a musical work.

But you can also see the painting as a kind of landscape. The triangle suggests a mountain, around which other shapes suggest aspects or symbols of a natural scene: sun, sky, lightning, water, and vegetation.