Charles Sheeler, American Landscape, 1930

Abstract

The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence This 61 × 78.8 cm oil on canvas was painted in 1930 by the American painter and photographer Charles Sheeler (1883–1965) and is part of a collection of his works held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1927, the Ford Motor Company commissioned Sheeler to take photographs to market the new Model A car and a series of photographs of the River Rouge industrial plant in Michigan where it was made [1]. Between 1930 and 1936, Sheeler would use these monochrome photographs to create a series of oil paintings—American Landscape, Classic Landscape, River Rouge Plant and City Interior [2]. All these paintings used subdued colours and Sheeler had to rely on his memory to supplement the monochrome photographs on which they were based [3]. The title American Landscape might lead the viewer to expect some idyllic scene created by nature; however, the only natural element in this painting is the sky—and that is invaded by smoke rising from a chimney. The water in the foreground is in a man-made canal. Sheeler’s landscape is one of factory buildings, chimneys, concrete silos, mobile crane loaders, rail track and raw materials demonstrating that in many parts of America industry had overtaken nature [4]. However, the structures are presented in an aesthetic manner and indeed the title Classic Landscape in another of his paintings may serve to draw parallels between the industrial structures and buildings of the classical era. Contemporarily Diego Rivera’s massive mural Detroit Industry (1933) depicted lively scenes of workers on engine and transmission production lines at the River Rouge plant [5]. In stark contrast, the only clue to vehicle manufacture in American Landscape is the minute Ford logo on three rail trucks. Also, the scene is dehumanized featuring one distant figure on the railway track thus magnifying the scale of the industrial operation [6]. River Rouge, then the world’s largest industrial complex employing over 75 000 employees, was a marvel of mechanical efficiency symbolizing the triumph of American ingenuity [2,4]. The plant contained 93 structures, 27 miles of conveyors and over 90 miles of rail track which connected steel mills, blast furnaces, glass plants and the assembly line [4,7]. Here was the epitome of vertically integrated manufacture where companies ensured self-sufficiency by owning the entire supply chain. The Ford Motor Company once owned 700 000 acres of forest, iron mines, coal mines and limestone quarries and a rubber plantation in Brazil. Ford operated a fleet of ore freighters and a regional railroad company to transport these materials to the Rouge [8]. The plant even made cement using granulated blast furnace slag which was a by-product from the steelworks [2]. Across industry vertical integration became unfashionable at the end of the century and many employers both in the private and public sector started to outsource non-core activities to wide networks of preferred external suppliers, distributors and retailers. Between 1910 and 1914, Ford introduced moving assembly lines and mass production more than doubling the company’s market share of cars sold [1]. Dehumanizing conditions, lack of autonomy, de-skilling and ever-increasing pace of the assembly lines caused strong worker dissatisfaction. Employees working at a non-unionized factory could only do one thing—quit their jobs; at the end of 1913 labour turnover was 370% [1]. Charlie Chaplin’s film Modern Times (1936) satirized Ford management practices, monotonous work and accelerating production lines which caused Chaplin’s character to suffer a nervous breakdown and to be evacuated to hospital by ambulance. There are no signs of the pace of work or stressed workers to the eyes of the observer of the painting who views the plant from the perspective of a passenger on a barge passing through the canal. As well as opening the public eye to the monumentality of industrial production Sheeler is revealing his admiration for architecture that was functional and simple, with shape being determined by purpose rather than conventions of style and decoration [2]. The exterior of the plant lent itself to the precisionist style of which Sheeler was a forerunner. Precisionism focuses on modern technology and takes an emotionally detached approach to the world. Precisionist art employs clear outlines, sharply defined lines, geometric shapes, little texture and it rarely included a human being [4,9]. It often portrayed transformation of the landscape in the wake of industrial progress [4]. Precisionist artists never formally organized themselves as a group but were associated through their common style and subjects [9]. Sheeler is recognized as a founder of American modernism. His precisionist paintings reconciled cubist abstraction and the machine aesthetic with American subject matter [10]. Having trained at the School of Industrial Art in Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts he was able to absorb learnings from each discipline to forge his own style [10]. However, painting didn’t pay the bills so Sheeler bought a camera and began to develop a successful business as a freelance photographer. It was his work for the NW Ayer advertising agency which led him to be commissioned by Ford [11]. Having pursued photography initially out of necessity he was to become recognized as one of the master photographers of the 20th century as well as a founder of Precisionism.

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