Charles Sheeler’s Paragone: Literary Influence and the Shaping of a Hierarchy

Abstract

This study is concerned with the literary and aesthetic influences that led to Charles Sheeler’s formation of a paragone in his early 20th century work. This painter, photographer, printmaker, and experimental filmmaker had very specific ideas concerning the hierarchy of the visual arts. While he is known for embracing a wide range of media and materials, by 1919 his aesthetic thought reveals a desire to elevate the painting over all other media. This formation of a visual paragone was initially influenced by his involvement in the interdisciplinary circles which surrounded both Alfred Stieglitz and Walter and Louise Arensberg in New York City. In particular, his lifelong friendship with the poet and writer William Carlos Williams would shape his aesthetic thought leading to his elevation of painting over all other media. Sheeler’s paragone would begin to form during his stays at the rural Doylestown House in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. This rural home, which he first rented with fellow painter Morton Schamberg in 1916, would become an artistic refuge for both artists. While commercial photography was beginning to take up more if his time in Philadelphia, it was the retreats to the Doylestown house that enabled Sheeler to continue experiments in painting and begin to think of the photograph as something other than a document of architectural work. At this early stage in his artistic career, Sheeler was beginning to form his own hierarchy and contribute to the continuing argument of painting versus photography.