Karen Lucic's 1991 book Charles Sheeler and the Cult of the Machine contains some fascinating material on both sides of the title: the precisionist artist and the preoccupations of his time.
His time was the early decades of the twentieth century, and the standardization of industrial production was having an effect in many areas of society. On Henry Ford Lucic has this to say:
Ford also embraced the emerging mechanistic attitude towards humanity; he even conceived of the body as consisting of interchangeable parts. "There is every reason to believe that we should be able to renew our human bodies in the same manner as we renew a defect in a boiler," he stated. He freely admitted that the principles of mass production limited personal freedom in the labour force and even claimed that most workers welcomed such a situation. "The average worker, I am sorry to say, wants a job in which he does not have to put forth much physical exertion - above all, he wants a job in which he does not have to think."
Is it a surprise that a titan of industry such as Ford held views that in a later era could be characterized as transhumanist? At least in part they could be. And maybe this shouldn't be a surprise. Technologists frequently seem to yearn for a human/machine marriage. In any case, he seems like he would be able to get rich now as well.
The work of Sheeler holds a lot of interest as well. The fact that he very rarely put human figures in is paintings makes him an ambivalent witness to his times.
2 comments:
I have to thank you for introducing me to yet another artist who was unfamiliar to me. I looked at the images you linked to and others I found of Charles Sheeler's work in order to make some sort of assessmant. I can see why it is you found his photographs and paintings interesting enough to hold your attention. He obviously had a very clear understanding of abstract form and his method of illustrating his way of seeing the new industrial world that was in its earliest (and most intense) period of development is impressive.
I must say I have some doubts about the truth of what Henry Ford thought about humanity since my own sympathies tend to lie with William Morris's Arts and Crafts Movement rather than the industrialization that won out after the two world wars. Not that we had the chance of expressing an opinion in the matter either at the time or later on, in retrospect I think the world would have been a better place for all of us had craftsmen continued to ply their trades.* The very idea of a human/machine marriage seems abominable to me for the simple reason it is an inhumane objective. Once again time and Nature will make the ultimate judgement.
It was interesting to me that the only image of Sheeler's I saw that contained a person was a landscape he painted that contained himself as the artist painting the scene. No, I'm not sure what to make of that.
* I've read that if one made it past the dangerous years of infancy most people were able to expect long and reasonably healthy lives. However, the lack of modern bathrooms might have proved uncomfortable.. I like having the luxury of a nice hot shower every day.
It was kind of by happenstance that I found this book. I searched the greater library system's website for something on the Precisionist movement. The book about Sheeler was the only one that came up, although the author says in the foreword that she won't be using the Precisionist term. Accidental or not, though, I had seen his work before and been impressed by it. It's funny how the first four decades of the twentieth century were a series of huge steps, and they led to the world they inhabit now. Yet they seem quaint because television hadn't been introduced. Invented in 1927, but almost no one had it.
William Morris was a savvy and successful artist, but he was backward looking in a lot of ways. And I use say that as a compliment. To only look forward can lead to having no roots, nothing to hold onto. Ford's "History is bunk" is still accepted in other terms today, and it's having the kind of effect you might expect it to have. As for the marriage of humanity and machines, thus far it seems to have been accomplished by training humans to turn off their humanity.
I think there are a couple of others with small pedestrian figures. But I have indeed seen the painting you refer to. It's in the book. There seems to be some satirical intent, as in the picture he's looking at one landscape and painting his old house, which isn't there in front of him.
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