The artwork “Eight Bells Folly: Memorial to Hart Crane” was created by the artist Marsden Hartley in 1933. It is a work that manifests itself within the Cubism art movement and is categorized under the genre of figurative art. This painting serves as a memorial to the poet Hart Crane, evoking themes of loss and remembrance through its visual composition.
The artwork portrays a night maritime scene in which abstract and geometric forms dominate the canvas. The color palette is rich with deep blues, suggesting the depth of the sea, and is contrasted with vibrant oranges and stark whites that denote the celestial bodies and sails of a partly depicted ship. The central focus of the piece is a figure, presumably representing Hart Crane, enveloped in what appears to be a wave. The figure’s expression is one of distress or perhaps resignation, and the curvature of the waves around the form adds a dynamic, almost suffocating energy to the piece.
The background of the painting features two window-like structures flanking either side, each filled with symbols such as a crescent moon, a bright orange orb that may signify the sun or another celestial body, and a set of eight bells. These windows seem to float disconnectedly over the waves, suggesting a dissonance between the physical and metaphysical or perhaps the distance between the mortal world and the hereafter.
The water is rendered with undulating lines and contains fish-like shapes that blend into the sea’s rhythm, perhaps indicative of the relentless and impersonal nature of the ocean. The ship, with its abstracted and fragmented sails marked by the numbers three and eight, dominates the upper portion of the composition, its presence both towering and ghostly. This fragmentation, typical of the Cubist approach, enables a multiplicity of perspectives and interpretations, creating a complex and layered contemplation on the theme of the artwork. The symbols within the artwork, including the number eight and the depiction of the bells, resonate with the title and underscore a commemorative intention behind this painting.
