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CONCEPTION SYNCHROMY #0106_1/ 2006
(  Satoshi Kinoshita )
| Series: | Paintings: Landscape | | Medium: | water-based silk screen printing inks on non-stretched canvas | | Size (inches): | 56 x 38 | | Size (mm): | 1422 x 965 | | Catalog #: | PA_096 | | Description: | Signed, titled, date, copyright in magic ink on the reverse.
Stanton Macdonald-Wright:
Macdonald-Wright (1890 - 1973), along with painter Morgan Russell (1886 - 1953), founded Synchromism, an optically based system of painting anchored in orchestrating colors the way one would arrange musical notes. Their resulting works were among the first abstract paintings presented in the international arena. Macdonald-Wright's work was represented in the famous Armory Show of 1913. He was also recognized as a leading authority on ancient Chinese and Japanese art; Asian philosophy greatly influenced his later work.
-www.kemperart.org/permanent/works/MacdonaldWright.asp
Stanton MacDonald-Wright (1890 - 1973), was a U.S. abstract painter. One of his significant achievements was co-founding the Synchromist movement in 1913.
"I became interested in Oriental art through probably the greatest aesthetician with whom I studied at the Sorbonne, in Paris, when I was a very young man over there. His name was Focillon. He is the man who is recognized, I guess all over the world, as being the greatest aesthetician of modern times; he is a very sweet fellow. And he said to me one day, 'I know nothing about Oriental art, but I think there is a great deal in it'." - Stanton, speaking in 1964.
"These two artists believed that color had sound equivalents, and the word synchromy means 'with color' the way symphony means 'with sound'. They believed that by painting in color scales in the same way that one composes with musical scales, you could create paintings that would evoke in the viewer musical sensations. Europeans at that time knew about these theories and were riled up [= excited] about them." - Will South, Curator, 'Color, Myth, and Music: Stanton Macdonald-Wright and Synchromism'
Like Kandinsky, Vorticism, and other then-contemporary abstract artists and movements, Synchomism explained itself in terms of music. Synchromist paintings were called 'Synchromies', a word which closely resembles 'Symphonies'.
In 1964, he was interviewed by a woman named Betty Hoag. He talks about his life and the art world, about Japanese and European influences and various people. He talks a lot about the various murals and things he did, or was involved in, in the California area. Interestingly, he claims that his painting is not influenced by oriental ideas:
Betty: "Do you feel there is any Oriental influence in your painting?" Stanton: "Not a particle; absolutely not! Not a hair's breadth!"
He goes on to explain:
"...it's altogether something... I don't believe it is possible for a Western mind to... Well, let's put it this way: I'll quote Jung and say I think it's very dangerous for a Western mind to monkey with Oriental ideas. I don't think it should be monkeyed-with at all."
This is presumably paraphrasing, rather than a direct quote. And further:
"Our minds don't work the way theirs do. Anybody who has studied Japanese would realize the utter difference between our method of thinking and what the Japanese do."
Despite this, his figurative period used Japanese forms and colours, and his later-life Synchromies, with such titles as 'Flight of the Butterfly' and 'Subjective Time', have a subtle, flowing, meditative feel to them which is undoubtedly related to his contact with Zen philosophy and art.
He probably means to say (above) that there is a fundamental difference between true oriental works and his own.
-en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanton_MacDonald-Wright
Synchromism:
Synchromism was an art movement founded in 1912 by American artists Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Morgan Russell.
Synchromism is based on the idea that color and sound are similar phenomena, and that the colors in a painting can be orchestrated in the same harmonious way that a composer arranges notes in a symphony. Macdonald-Wright and Russell believed that by painting in color scales, their work could evoke musical sensations.
The abstract "synchromies" are based on color scales, using rhythmic color forms with advancing and reducing hues. They typically have a central vortex and explode in complex color harmonies.
The first synchromist painting, Russell's Synchromy in Green, exhibited at the Paris Salon des Indépendants in 1913. Later that year, the first synchromist exhibition by Macdonald-Wright and Russell was shown in Munich. Next were exhibits in Paris and, the following year, in New York.
These synchromies are some of the first abstract non-objective paintings in American art, and became the first American avant-garde art movement to gain international attention.
The multicolored shapes of synchromist paintings often resembled those found in orphism, but MacDonald-Wright insisted that synchromism was a unique art form, and "has nothing to do with orphism and anybody who has read the first catalogue of synchromism ... would realize that we poked fun at orphism".
Other American painters experimenting with synchromism included Thomas Hart Benton, Andrew Dasburg, and Patrick Henry Bruce.
-en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchromism
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