At first glance the piece by Sheeler and the piece by Rivera a strikingly different. Yet they are both piece that reflect what they saw in the Rouge Ford Factory in Detroit around the same time period. How can this be, simple really it is as in most things a matter of perspective.
In his Detroit frescoes, Rivera focused on the relationship between man and machine. He also picked up on the diversity of the workers in a heavily ethnic city. He not only sought to glorify industry, but to glorify the dignity of the workers.
Rivera explained the symbolism in his murals:
"The yellow race represents the sand, because it is most numerous," he said. "And the red race, the first in this country, is like the iron ore, the first thing necessary for the steel.
"The black race is like coal, because it has a great native esthetic sense, a real flame of feeling and beauty in its ancient sculpture, its native rhythm and music. So its esthetic sense is like the fire, and its labor furnishes the hardness, which the carbon in the coal gives to steel.
"The white race is like the lime, not only because it is white, but because lime is the organizing agent in the making of steel. It binds together the other elements and so you see the white race as the great organizer of the world."
Sheeler takes the Rouge Ford Factory abstracts it and undoubtedly adds his own opinion on industry at the time It holds no nature at all, except for the sky (into which a plume of effluents rises from a tall smokestack). Whatever can be seen is man-made, and the view has a curious and embalmed serenity, produced by the regular cylinders of silos and smokestack and the dark authoritarian arms of the loading machinery to the right. The sphere, the cube, and the cylinder are no longer things to be sought in nature, as Cezanne had once recommended: in the mighty abstraction of process and product, they have replaced nature altogether.
Both piece after a closer look do have the same objective they reflect the view of the individual painter.
Rivera information courtesy of: http://info.detnews.com/history/story/index.cfm?id=189&category=business
Sheeler's work explained by: http://www.artchive.com/artchive/S/sheeler.html |