About this work
Abstract forms surge across the canvas in vibrant greens, oranges, reds, and yellows, each shape crisply outlined in black — and woven throughout are the unmistakable signs of musical notation: staffs, clefs, and notes that give the composition its restless, rhythmic energy. Alongside these, religious imagery crowds the picture plane — references to Buddhist and Indian traditions, and the recurrence of the eight-pointed star, a mystical symbol Hartley returned to again and again.
Hartley applied his oils thinly so that each shape would not blare out but work in harmony with the others — the result is a painting that vibrates rather than shouts, its density held in check by a surprising internal equilibrium. Hartley makes references to music not only through literal symbols but through the rendering of paint itself, taking an improvisational approach to mark-making that recalls jazz as much as notation; one can also detect the influence of Picasso's Analytic Cubism in the structured composition beneath all that color.
*Musical Theme (Oriental Symphony)* was painted in 1912–13, oil on canvas, and now belongs to the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University.
It was painted in Paris, during the period Hartley described as his "symbolist fantasies" — a moment when he was absorbing Cubism, encountering the Blaue Reiter's fusion of color and spirit, and reading Kandinsky's *On the Spiritual in Art* with genuine urgency. Hartley was deeply influenced by Kandinsky's ideas and began adapting aspects of his circle's work into his own paintings; that influence is evident in the palette, structure, and incorporation of musical and Buddhist iconography in this very work. Hartley himself described the "Musical Theme" paintings in terms that reveal how seriously he meant the title: he wrote that they "look like a conclave of universal elements confiding in one another — things that look like stars — birds' wings — sun rays," and called it "a kind of cosmic dictation applied aesthetically to produce a harmony of shapes and colors." The painting is a threshold work — standing at the exact moment Hartley crossed from expressionism into full abstraction.
This is a painting for rooms that can handle intellectual weight without formality — a study lined with books, a minimalist living space with warm wood tones, anywhere that benefits from something to actually look at rather than simply decorate. The "Musical Theme" paintings, alongside the German Officer series, are among the works that justify Hartley's high ranking in the annals of American art — and on a wall, that pedigree is legible. The viewer who lives with this print is someone drawn to ideas as much as beauty: to the question of what sound looks like, what belief looks like, what it means for a painting to be a symphony. Its rich palette reads warm in evening light; its geometry holds the eye without exhausting it.
