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Charles Sheeler

Date: 1917

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1987.33

Text Entries: Flower Forms is a rhythmic and simplified semi-abstraction of a still life that in many respects seems atypical of the Precisionist paintings-such as Bucks County Barn-commonly associated with Charles Sheeler. In the painting, however, Sheeler still achieves a high degree of realism, his intense representation evoking the flowers' internal physiology. In fact, the almost anatomical treatment of the flower theme strongly suggests Georgia O'Keeffe's later botanical paintings. Developments in such modern sciences as biochemistry may partially account for the efforts of the early modernist artists to search out underlying forms. Certainly it is consistent with Sheeler's desire to probe beneath the surface of forms and to use art to increase our capacity for perception.