Do as the Machines Do: A Brief Exploration of Precisionism

# Introduction

During the year 2021, there were certain changes in my life that led me to develop a heightened aesthetical interest in mechanical, industrial, and technological subject matter. I had created the channel {techdeco} to explore this interest. The name 'techdeco' is derived from 'Art deco', and refers to the idea of 'technology as decoration'—I was enamoured by metal surfaces that glimmered like gemstones, complex machinery that could inspire jewelry designs, circuitry that reminded me of oriental fabric work. As I worked on this channel, I discovered a variety of artist that I would later find out were connected by a common thread called Precisionism.

I have since abandoned the original techdeco vision, but the Precisionist vision continues to resonate with me. Recently, I felt called to research the art movement of Precisionism in-depth: to look at its origins, its context, and its desires. This post is the cumulation of what I have researched during the past week. I primarily reference the essays in the book 'Cult of the Machine: Precisionism and American Art' in combination with a few other articles. While I feel I have only scratched the surface of Precisionism, I can at least say I have acquired a general understanding of the movement's origins, and of the key characteristics that mark Precisionist works—which I will outline in this post.

# What is Precisionism?

Precisionism is a term applied retrospectively to a collection of work made by American artists during the interwar period (between the 1920s and 1930s) that appeared to be bound not by a common worldview, but by a common vision. The movement, which coincided with the rise of the Machine age, took industrial and mechanical subjects as its focus, and employed an aesthetical style that combined realism and abstraction to create precise, simplified, and flattened geometrical images of urban and rural landscapes. Some notable Precisionists include Elsie Driggs, Georgia O’Keefe, Charles Demuth, George Ault, and Charles Sheeler.

# Key characteristics of Precisionism

I have taken the liberty to organize what I see as the key characteristics of Precisionism into the following four categories: its subject matter, which is rooted in industrialization; its style, which is geometrical and efficient; its lack of human presence; and its sense of emotional detachment. The following paragraphs take a closer look at each of these categories.

Subject Matter

A common subject matter in Precisionist work is the focus on industrial and mechanical subjects, which rose from a national pride for the American native subject, and an optimism toward what industrialization could afford to society (Acker, 2018). Skyscrapers, bridges, planes, trains, ships, tower cranes and factories were taken as symbols of the American spirit, and the efficiency and power of urban architecture was celebrated. Artists like {Elsie Driggs} looked to capture the feeling of 'Industrial Sublime': the way in which colossal steel mills and industrial architecture elicited a feeling of awe, admiration, and perhaps even unease (Palmor, 2018). A strong connotation between religion and industry was also present in many Precisionist works, sometimes used ironically to depict how industry had replaced religion. The starry-eyed gaze exhibited by many Precisionists toward their subject matter is alluded to in the book title “Cult of the Machine”.

Though Precisionists shared a common subject matter, they did not always share the same attitude toward their material. These attitudes ranged from admiration, neutrality, ambivalence, and hostility (Acker, 2018). Some artists like George Ault would oscillate back and forth between optimism and pessimism throughout their careers.

Style

Precisionism’s style was created from a synthesis of other movements which used simple, geometric forms. These included Cubism, Purism, and Futurism. Photography also influenced the style of compositions used in works such as those by Charles Sheeler. This simplified style may have been born from a desire for order in reaction to the terrors of WW1 and the chaos of twentieth-century life (Acker, 2018). Complex city scenes were reduced to bare geometric structures; buildings were stripped of detail and texture; and forms were flattened into elementary shapes and color washes. There is an economic use of lines, values, and colors which make the work appear as if it was made by a machine, printed onto canvas in standardized manner so that “no line is wasted, no color is excessive, and no brushstroke is unaccounted for.” (Corwin, 2003, pg. 155).

Lack of Human Presence

As the machine took on the role of protagonist, humans were either diminished by comparison, or completely thrown out of the pictorial plane. The disturbing lack of human presence which characterizes many Precisionist work can be theorized in different ways. One view is that “the key stylistic characteristics of Precisionism were not compatible with the soft contours of the human form.” (Canterbury, 2018, pg. 45). Humans were too organic, too curvy, too messy. The sanitization of humans could have also been a reaction to fears of overcrowding and overstimulation (Canterbury, 2018). For artists like Sheeler, the lack of humans represented a more beautiful, efficient, and idealized city-scape. Sheeler’s works “evoke an inescapable sense of timelessness, anonymity, and distance between the viewer and the scene portrayed.” (Canterbury, 2018, pg. 45). He achieves this sense of timelessness by removing any signs of movement (usually found in human bodies). What remains is an appearance of inactivity—an aesthetic of stasis. Finally, the lack of human presence could be seen as a reflection of the dehumanizing effects of industrialization.

“The eerie stillness of many Precisionist city scenes captured a key emotional facet of urban life—its capacity to instill in its inhabitants a sense of loneliness and alienation.” (Acker, 2018, pg. 29).

For Corwin, “Precisionist works ... not only represent the subjects of mass industrialism but also illustrate its values: the efficiency of the machine and the factory, in other words, is conveyed formally.” (Corwin, 2003, pg. 150). The American pursuit of efficiency is represented in visual form through the concealment of labour and its messy inefficiencies. There are three types of concealment that appear in Precisionist works. The first is the visual concealment of labourers in cities and factories—hence the desolate industrial landscapes. The second is the technical concealment of brushstrokes and other signs of artistic labour, which can be seen in the “almost imperceptible brushwork” (Corwin, 2003, pg. 140) of {Charles Sheeler}. The third is the symbolic concealment of context through decontextualizing machine objects from the act of labour and the site of production. For {example}, “Schamberg and Lozowick’s machines not only conceal the artist’s hand through the suppression of conspicuous brushwork; with their blank backgrounds, they also depict a machine wholly decontextualized from the factory as a site of labor.” (Corwin, 2003, pg. 150). In this way, efficiency is given visual form, where labour is abstracted, decontextualized, standardized, and in a Marxist sense, alienated.

“It is this tendency to disassociate the surface of the canvas from the means of its production or, in other words, to make labor invisible as a way of visualizing efficiency, that characterizes Precisionism.” (Corwin, 2003, pg. 154)

Emotional Detachment

A common critique of Precisionist work was that it appeared cold, soulless, and lacking personality (Acker, 2018). There was often an appearance of neutrality or emotional detachment between the artist and their subject matter. The apparent emotionless nature of Precisionist works could have been due to the ambivalence and tension that artists felt toward their mechanical subjects—which were both a source of idealized pride, and also a source of fear and anxiety—leading to images that were ambiguous in stance, where no one emotion dominated another.

As well, Acker argues that this apparent impersonality was deceptive, showing how Precisionists would often make “use of a mechanical object as a vehicle for self-expression” (Acker, 2018, pg. 34). The use of the human/machine analogy during the Precisionist period helped artists to describe and navigate human experiences in the same way that we now use computers, networks, and digital metaphors to describe our own experiences and emotions.

# What Comes Next?

The end of Precisionism's peak came with the devastation of WW2, as “the use of the atomic bomb in that war would give rise to widespread unease about technology’s power to destroy, undermining the confident outlook that had made the Precisionist mode possible.” (Murphy, 2007). Idealization was replaced by disillusionment, ambivalence was replaced by a clear stance toward technology, and post-war American artists increasingly turned toward the inner world of the subconscious and the psyche—while audiences moved their attention to surrealism and abstract expressionism.

Nevertheless, Precisionism continues to inspire modern expressions, albeit in subtle ways. In the next stage of my research, I intend to explore how these key characteristics of Precisionism continue to show up in my other artistic inspirations, as well as how these characteristics have evolved through a modern lens. I also plan to explore the ways in which the fourth industrial revolution may either revitalize an interest in the Precisionist mode, or otherwise reflect the ways in which the core characteristics of Precisionism cannot withstand modern times and are therefore in need of being adapted.

References:

Acker, E., Canterbury, S., Palmor, L., Daub, A., M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, & Dallas Museum of Art (Eds.). (2018). Cult of the machine: Precisionism and American art. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco·de Young ; in association with Yale University Press.

Corwin, S. (2003). Picturing Efficiency: Precisionism, Scientific Management, and the Effacement of Labor. Representations, 84(1), 139–165. https://doi.org/10.1525/rep.2003.84.1.139

Murphy, J. (2007). Precisionism | Essay | The Metropolitan Museum of Art | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Retrieved March 6, 2023, from https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/prec/hd_prec.htm

> Posted: March 06 2023