User:Petropoxy (Lithoderm Proxy)/I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold

I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold
Artist	Charles Demuth
Year	1928
Type	Oil on cardboard
Dimensions	90.2 cm × 76.2 cm (35+1⁄2 in × 20 in)
Location	Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alfred Stieglitz Collection, New York City

I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold is a 1928 oil painting by Charles Demuth in the Precisionist style. The painting is a "poster portrait" of the poet William Carlos Williams, whose poem "The Great Figure" inspired its imagery and gave it its title. In this work Demuth synthesized influences from European avant-garde movements such as cubism and futurism to create an abstract painting that wholly American in its scale and impact. In its poster-like boldness and monumentalization of everyday subject matter, I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold prefigures American Pop Art thirty years before it emerged as a movement. It is considered one of Charles Demuth's greatest works, and would prove an especially strong influence on Jasper Johns and Robert Indiana, both of whom produced works based upon it.

Origin

"The Great Figure"
Among the rain and lights I saw the figure 5 in gold on a red firetruck moving tense unheeded to gong clangs siren howls and wheels rumbling through the dark city —William Carlos Williams, 1921

References

• Dijkstra, Bram (1969). The Hieroglyphics of a New Speech: Cubism, Stieglitz, and the Early Poetry of William Carlos Williams. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691061696
• Fisher, Barbara M. (1997). Noble Numbers, Subtle Words: The Art of Mathematics in the Science of Storytelling. Associated University Presses. ISBN 083863740X
• Frank, Robin Jaffee (1994). Charles Demuth: Poster Portraits 1923 - 1929. Yale University Press. ISBN 0894670654
• Geldzahler, Henry. "Numbers in Time: Two American Paintings." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 23, no. 8 (April, 1965).
• Halter, Peter (1994). The Revolution in the Visual Arts and the Poetry of William Carlos Williams. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521431301
• Haskell, Barbara (1987). Charles Demuth. Abrams. ISBN 0874270561
• Ryan, Susan Elizabeth (2000). Robert Indiana: Figures of Speech. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300079575
• Tashjian, Dickran (1978). William Carlos Williams and the American Scene, 1920 - 1940. University of California Press. ISBN 0520038541

External links

• "Charles Demuth: The Figure 5 in Gold (49.59.1)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. (October 2006; retrieved 27 January 2012)

For my own reference: 1 2 3 4