Synchromism
Started: 1912
Ended: 1924
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KEY ARTISTS
 | Morgan Russell Quick View Further External Info  |
| Morgan Russell |  |
| Morgan Russell was an American abstract artist and founder in 1913 of Synchromism, a movement that elaborated ideas about color and its relationship to shape and pattern. Further External Info | ||
 | Stanton Macdonald-Wright Quick View Further External Info |
| Stanton Macdonald-Wright | |
| The co-founder of Synchromism, Stanton Macdonald-Wright was a pioneer American abstractionist and avant-garde influencer. Further External Info | ||
 | Arthur B. Davies Quick View Further External Info |
| Arthur B. Davies | |
| Davies was a popular and prolific modernist painter who helped to organize the famous Armory Show of 1913. Davies merged modern art innovations, such as strong colors and Cubist structure, with classical styles to illustrate the idyllic fantasy scenes for which he was best known. Further External Info | ||
 | Thomas Hart Benton Quick View Artist Page |
| Thomas Hart Benton | |
| Thomas Hart Benton was an American painter whose rural and industrial subjects, grand-scale murals, and figurative style were hallmarks of American Regionalism. Art Story: Thomas Hart Benton Artist Page | ||
 | Stuart Davis Quick View Artist Page |
| Stuart Davis | |
| Stuart Davis Cubist-inspired, but American themes, and his visual manifestation of jazz music were important in the development of movements from Abstract Expressionism to Pop art. He was one of the youngest artists represented at the 1913 Armory Show and taught many young artists in New York City. Art Story: Stuart Davis Artist Page | ||
Summary of Synchromism
At the time when French, German, and Eastern European artists were deftly pushing painting toward complete abstraction in the second decade of the 20th century, two audacious Americans, Morgan Russell and Stanton Macdonald-Wright, then living in Paris, made their own forays into abstraction, calling their new movement Synchromism. Russell coined the term when he thought of the word "symphony," and "chrome" flashed across his mind, so he put the two words together. The resulting paintings, called Synchromies, used the color scale in the way notes might be arranged in a musical piece, as the two artists wrote, "Synchromism simply means 'with color' as symphony means 'with sound'...."
Dismissing their artistic confrères, the Synchromists insisted that they had finally used color abstractly and not descriptively. While their bombast offended their European colleagues, the Synchromists had a small, if short-lived, following back in the United States and are known for being America's first avant-garde group.
Key Ideas
Beginnings:
A number of influences came together in the development of Synchromism, including the influence of the Fauves, and particularly Henri Matisse, as well as the work of Paul Cézanne and the Cubism of Pablo Picasso. Additionally, the color theories of the Canadian artist Ernest Percyval-Tudor as well as atonal music and sculpture, particularly on the part of Russell, contributed to the formulation of the movement.
Important Art and Artists of Synchromism | |
 Artwork Images | Synchromy in Orange: To Form (1913-1914)Artist: Morgan Russell Artwork description & Analysis: This large canvas, about eleven feet square, with a frame painted by the artist that both contains the painting and lets the painting spill into the space around it, has been described as Russell's greatest work. The planes of saturated colors that curve and fold have a remarkable density and three-dimensional effect. The green and red triangles on the upper left seem to buckle with intensity, weighing on the yellow, green, and white irregular geometric shapes in the center. A dynamic stacking of various planes creates a sense of unfurling while being simultaneously energetically contained. Oil on canvas - Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York |
 Artwork Images | Day of Good Fortune (1914)Artist: Arthur B. Davies Artwork description & Analysis: This painting, depicting two dancing, nude women, shows Davies bringing a Synchromist treatment to his characteristic figurative work. The woman on the left, rendered primarily in tones of white, her arms over her head, bends forward gracefully, while on the right, another woman, a kaleidoscope of color, lifts her left leg and arches her arms above her head. Depicted in variously colored geometric shapes, the women become closer to abstracted figures of movement, flowing into the shapes that extend and swirl around them like the music that attends them. The black background, suggesting the backdrop of a stage, creates a sense of space through which the music swirls, embodied in the movements of the dancers and extending out of the pictorial frame. Oil on canvas - Whitney Museum of Art, New York, New York |
 Artwork Images | Bubbles (1914-1917)Artist: Thomas Hart Benton Artwork description & Analysis: The title of this work, assigned by its first owner the writer H. L. Mencken, suggests that the painting is illustrative, but in fact it was meant to be entirely abstract. Using a vibrant color scheme, the painting depicts a number of variously colored circular shapes radiating from its center, as larger varied geometric forms, predominantly blue, green, purple and yellow curve around it. Crescents of more intense color on the circles draw the viewer's eye up along the center right as if following a kind of implicit J shape. Oil on canvas - Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland |
More Synchromism Artwork and Analysis:
Content compiled and written by Rebecca Seiferle
Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
" Movement Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org
Content compiled and written by Rebecca Seiferle
Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
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First published on 22 Oct 2017. Updated and modified regularly. 
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