Marsden HartleyAmerican, 1877–1943Yliaster (Paracelsus)
Can I see it?
Unknown
Where is “Yliaster (Paracelsus)” now? Collection: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Unknown.
Washington, D.C., United States
The owner is known; whether it is on view today is not.
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the painting
To Americans in the 1930s, Mexico represented an ancient and deeply spiritual civilization much different from the industrial culture to the north. Artists and writers returned to the United States exalted by the myths and rituals that permeated the everyday lives of the Mexican people. Hartley made the trip in 1932 on a Guggenheim Fellowship, absorbing the primeval landscapes and surviving remnants of Aztec art. In a private library in Mexico City, he read that the medieval mystic Paracelsus had given the name yliaster to the base matter from which everything in the universe was made. This painting shows the volcanic peak of Popocatepetl rising from a red plain against the disk of the sun. Fire and earth contend with the intense blues in the sky and lake, completing the four elements of earth, air, fire and water that Paracelsus described.
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Details
- Accession number
- 1988.53
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Image: Smithsonian American Art Museum — CC0
![The Watering Place (Horses Bathing) [L'abreuvoir (chevaux au bain)], Pablo Picasso, 1905, published 1913](https://api.nga.gov/iiif/08343715-9591-40a8-969e-b17bc59fee8c/full/!2400,2400/0/default.jpg)
