It’s June, the perfect time of year to look at the co-founder (along with Morgan Russell) of Synchromism, Stanton Macdonald-Wright (1890-1973).  Synchromism was the first American modernist style of painting.    It is a color-based painting theory and the first American avant-garde art movement to receive international attention.  Macdonald-Wright was also born in Charlottesville, another reason to get to know him a little better.  

As a young man Macdonald-Wright (no relation to Frank Lloyd), with his new wife, moved to Paris to study art.    He was deeply influenced by his teacher, a Canadian color theorist named Percyval Tudor-Hart, where he and fellow student Morgan Russell immersed themselves in the relationship between music and color.   His teacher saw color as one would hear music.  He correlated the spectrum of color with the steps of the musical scale, producing visual melodies.   Macdonald-Wright and Russell’s study involved selecting color chords developed from chromatic scales.  Each color was assigned a note on the musical scale.  The color choices reflected luminosity, the color tone equated hue, and intensity was described through saturation.    

The movement they developed was called  Synchromism, which used color in an abstract way.   They believed their paintings could evoke emotions and sensations.  

Another great contribution of synchromism to art history was that it was non-objective.  That is, it took Impressionism one step further by eliminating the representational image—a figure, still life or landscape.    Again, Macdonald-Wright’s early paintings became like visual musical rhythms, using color instead of sound.    Along with being one of America’s first avant-garde painters, Macdonald-Wright also introduced modern art to Los Angeles on the West Coast in the 1920s, at a time when New York was the cultural center of art in the United States.  

As he developed as an artist, he became immersed in Eastern art, particularly Japanese art and poetry.  He later called the effects of this practice in his work a “spiritual awakening.” 

For a more in-depth look at this pioneer in the history of art, see:

Stanton Macdonald-Wright – Wikipedia

Stanton Macdonald-Wright Paintings, Bio, Ideas | TheArtStory