View source for Precisionism

{{short description|Art movement}}
{{Redirect|Precisionist|the racehorse|Precisionist (horse)}}
[[Image:Demuth Charles Aucassiu and Nicolette 1921.jpg|thumb|right|250px|[[Charles Demuth]], ''Aucassin and Nicolette,'' oil on canvas, 1921]]

'''Precisionism''' was a [[modernist]] [[art movement]] that emerged in the [[United States]] after [[World War I]]. Influenced by [[Cubism]], [[Purism]], and [[Futurism]], Precisionist artists reduced subjects to their essential geometric shapes, eliminated detail, and often used planes of light to create a sense of crisp focus and suggest the sleekness and sheen of machine forms. At the height of its popularity during the 1920s and early 1930s, Precisionism celebrated the new American landscape of [[skyscraper]]s, bridges, and factories in a form that has also been called "Cubist-Realism."<ref>Milton Brown, ''American Painting from the Armory Show to the Depression'' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955), pp. 114–115.</ref>  The term "Precisionism" was first coined in the mid-1920s, possibly by [[Museum of Modern Art]] director Alfred H. Barr<ref>Gail Stavitsky, ''Precisionism in America, 1915–1941: Reordering Reality'' (New York: Abrams, 1994), p. 21.</ref> although according to [[Amy Dempsey]] the term "Precisionism" was coined by [[Charles Sheeler]].<ref>[Styles, schools and movements, published by Thames & Hudson 2002 Amy Dempsey]</ref> Painters working in this style were also known as the "Immaculates", which was the more commonly used term at the time.<ref>Stavitsky, p. 19.</ref> The stiffness of both art-historical labels suggests the difficulties contemporary critics had in attempting to characterize these artists.

== An American movement ==
[[File:NY Met demuth figure 5 gold.JPG|thumb|left|[[Charles Demuth]], ''[[I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold]]'', 1928, [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]]]]

While influenced by European modernist artistic movements like [[Cubism]], [[Purism]], and [[futurism (art)|Futurism]], Precisionism focused on the themes of [[industrialisation|industrialization]] and modernization in the American landscape,  using precise, sharply defined [[abstract art|geometrical forms]]. Precisionist artists embraced their American identity and some were reluctant to acknowledge European artistic influences.<ref>[http://www.metmuseum.org/TOAH/hd/prec/hd_prec.htm Metropolitan Museum of Art]</ref>

There is a degree of reverence for the industrial age in the movement, but social commentary was not fundamental to the style. Like [[Pop Art]], Precisionism has on occasion been interpreted as a criticism of the de-natured society it portrays, though its artists did not often feel comfortable with this reading of their work. [[Elsie Driggs]]' ''Pittsburgh'' (1926) illustrates this gap in perception.<ref>For a fuller discussion of ''Pittsburgh'', see Constance Kimmerle, ''Elsie Driggs: The Quick and the Classical'' (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), pp. 31-33 and John Loughery, "Blending the Classical and the Modern: The Art of Elsie Driggs", ''Woman's Art Journal'' (Winter 1987), p 24.</ref>  A painting of black and gray steel-mill smokestacks, thick piping, and crisscrossing wires, with only clouds of smoke to relieve the severity of the image, viewers have been tempted to see this dark painting as a statement of environmental concern. To the contrary, Driggs always claimed that she intended an ironic beauty in the image and referred to it as "my [[El Greco]]." Upon seeing the painting, Charles Daniel dubbed her "one of the new classicists."<ref>Kimmerle, p. 32.</ref> More often than not, Precisionism implicitly celebrated man-made dynamism and new technologies.  Possible exceptions to this statement are some of the darker, more claustrophobic city paintings of [[Louis Lozowick]] and the comic anti-capitalist satires of [[Preston Dickinson]].

Varying degrees of abstraction are found in Precisionist works. ''[[I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold|The Figure 5 in Gold]]'' (1928) by [[Charles Demuth]], an homage to [[William Carlos Williams]]' imagist poem about a fire truck is abstract and stylized, while the paintings of [[Charles Sheeler]] sometimes verge on a form of [[photorealism]]. (In addition to his meticulously detailed paintings like ''River Rouge Plant'' and ''American Landscape'', Sheeler, like his friend [[Paul Strand]], also created sharply focused photographs of factories and public buildings.<ref>[http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/exhibitionInfo/exhibition/16202 Charles Sheeler photo, retrieved online November 9, 2008]</ref>)  Some Precisionist works tended toward a "highly controlled approach to technique and form" as well as an application of "[[hard-edge painting|hard-edged]] style to long-familiar American scenes".<ref>[http://www.metmuseum.org/TOAH/hd/prec/hd_prec.htm Metropolitan Museum of Art]</ref>

Precisionist artists often focused on urban imagery: office towers, apartment houses, bridges, tunnels, subway platforms, streets, the skyline and grid of the modern city.  Other artists, however, such as [[Georgia O'Keeffe]], Charles Demuth, Niles Spencer, [[Ralston Crawford]], [[Sanford Ross]], and [[Charles Sheeler]], applied the same approach to more pastoral settings and painted starkly geometric renderings of barns, cottages, country roads, and farm houses.  [[Stuart Davis (painter)|Stuart Davis]] and [[Gerald Murphy]] painted still life compositions in a Precisionist style.

==Precisionists==
[[File:Wall Street by Paul Strand, 1915.jpg|thumb|[[Paul Strand]], ''[[Wall Street (photograph)|Wall Street]]'', 1915]]

American artists whose work has been labeled as reflective of Precisionism include: [[Anna Held Audette]],<ref name="American Precision Museum">{{cite web |title=The Art of Anna Held Audette – APM |url=https://americanprecision.org/events/the-art-of-anna-held-audette/ |website=American Precision Museum |access-date=25 December 2024}}</ref> [[George Ault]], [[Ralston Crawford]], [[Francis Criss]], [[Stuart Davis (painter)|Stuart Davis]], [[Charles Demuth]], [[Georgia O'Keeffe]], [[Preston Dickinson]], [[Elsie Driggs]], [[Louis Lozowick]], [[Gerald Murphy]], [[Charles Sheeler]], [[Niles Spencer]], [[Morton Schamberg]], [[Joseph Stella]],<ref>[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04EED81439F932A25751C1A962958260&fta=y The New York Times, Roberta Smith, ''ART VIEW: Precisionism And a Few Of Its Friends", October 26, 2008'']</ref> [[Charles Rosen (painter)|Charles Rosen]], [[Dale Nichols]], [[Millard Sheets]],<ref>[https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/hilbert-museum-chapman-california-scene-paintings The Hilbert Museum reveals treasures of California Scene Painting, Liz Goldner, February 24, 2016 KCET https://www.kcet.org/ ]</ref>[[Edward Hopper]], [[Virginia Berresford]], [[Henry Billings]], [[Peter Blume]], [[Stefan Hirsch]], [[Edmund Lewandowski]], [[John Storrs (sculptor)|John Storrs]], [[Miklos Suba]], Sandor Bernath, [[Herman Trunk]], [[Arnold Wiltz]], [[Clarence Holbrook Carter]], Edgar Corbridge and the photographers [[Paul Strand]] and [[Lewis Hine]]. The movement had no major presence outside the United States, although it did influence [[Australian art]] where [[Jeffrey Smart]] adopted its principles.{{Citation needed|date=June 2022}} Although no manifesto was ever created, some of the artists were friends and frequently exhibited at the same galleries. [[Georgia O'Keeffe]]'s husband, photographer and art dealer [[Alfred Stieglitz]], was a highly regarded mentor for the group and was especially supportive of Paul Strand.{{Citation needed|date=June 2022}}

Precisionism had an indirect influence on the later styles known as [[magic realism]], [[pop art]], and [[photorealism]], but it was largely considered a dated "period style" by the 1950s, though its influence on advertising imagery and stage and set design continued throughout the twentieth century. Its two most famous practitioners are Charles Demuth and Charles Sheeler.{{Citation needed|date=June 2022}}

==Gallery==
<gallery widths="200px" heights="200px">
File:Morton Livingston Schamberg - Telephone (1916).jpg|[[Morton Schamberg]], ''Telephone,'' 1916,  oil on canvas, [[Columbus Museum of Art]].
File:Head Woodcut 1920.jpg|[[John Storrs (sculptor)|John Storrs]], ''Profile Head with Cap'', c. 1918, woodcut on paper [[Smithsonian American Art Museum]]
File:Joseph Stella, 1919-20, Brooklyn Bridge, oil on canvas, 215.3 x 194.6 cm, Yale University Art Gallery.jpg|[[Joseph Stella]], ''Brooklyn Bridge,'' 1919–1920, [[Yale University Art Gallery]]
Image:Davis_Stuart_Lucky_Strike_1921.jpg|[[Stuart Davis (painter)|Stuart Davis]], ''Lucky Strike,'' 1921, oil on canvas, [[Museum of Modern Art]] [[New York City]]
Image:Davis steeple street.jpg|Stuart Davis, ''Steeple and Street'', 1922, [[Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden]], [[Washington, DC.]]
Image:Demuth_Charles_Incense of a New Church, 1921.jpg|[[Charles Demuth]], ''Incense of a New Church'' (1921)
Image:Charles_Demuth_-_My_Egypt.jpg|Charles Demuth, ''[[My Egypt]]'', oil on composition board, 1927, [[Whitney Museum]]
Image:Demuth_Charles_Chimney_and_Watertower_1931.jpg|Charles Demuth, ''Chimney and Watertower,'' oil on composition board, 1931, [[Amon Carter Museum]], [[Fort Worth, Texas]]
File:Skyscrapers_Sheeler_1922.jpg|[[Charles Sheeler]], ''Skyscrapers'' (1922)
File:Sidewheel_in_the_Rondout.jpg|[[Charles Rosen (painter)|Charles Rosen]], ''Sidewheel in the Rondout''
</gallery>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* Acker, Emma; Canterbury, Sue; Daub, Adrian; and Palmor, Lauren. ''Cult of the Machine: Precisionism and American Art''. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018.
* Barry, Claire and Fahlman, Betsy. ''Chimneys and Towers: Charles Demuth's Late Paintings of Lancaster''. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007.
* Friedman, Martin L. ''The Precisionist View in American Art''. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1960.
* Harnsberger, R.S. ''Ten Precisionist Artists: Annotated Bibliographies''. Art Reference Collection no. 14. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992.
* Hemingway, Andrew ''The Mysticism of Money: Precisionist Painting and Machine Age America''. Pittsburgh & New York: Periscope Publishing, 2013
* Hughes, Robert. ''American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America''. New York; Knopf, 1994.
* Kimmerle, Constance. ''Elsie Driggs: The Quick and the Classical.'' Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.
* Lazevnick, Ashley. ''Fantasies of Precision: American Modern Art, 1908-1947''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2023.
* Martin, Michael (ed.). ''Edmund Lewandowski: Precisionism and Beyond''. Flint, MI: Flint Institute of Arts, 2010.
* Rawlinson, Mark. ''Charles Sheeler: Modernism, Precisionism and the Borders of Abstraction''. Abingdon-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England, UK: Routledge, 2025.
* Stavitsky, Gail. ''Precisionism in America, 1915–1941: Reordering Reality''. New York: Abrams, 1994.
* Tsujimoto, Karen. ''Images of America: Precisionist Painting and Modern Photography''. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1982.
* Ward, Meredith. ''Streamlined: The Precisionist Impulse in American Art''. New York: Hirschl & Adler Galleries, 1995.

==Further reading==
* [[Hilton Kramer|Kramer, Hilton]], 1982, "Precisionism Revised" in ''Revenge of the Philistines, Art & Culture 1972–1984''. Free Press, September 12, 2007, {{ISBN|1416576932}}

==External links==
* [http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/precisionism.html "Precisionism"] in Artcyclopedia
* [https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/precisionism Precisionism] at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120305025312/http://www.danielhlee.com/precisionists/ Precisionists—Consummate Anti-Expressionists]

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{{Charles Demuth}}

[[Category:Precisionism| ]]
[[Category:1920s in art]]
[[Category:1930s in art]]
[[Category:American art movements]]
[[Category:Art movements]]
[[Category:Modern art]]