Marsden Hartley

 
In the last few years of his life, Hartley created a group of boldly painted still lifes of flowers, in which the colors verge on fluorescence. Roses dates from June 1943, three months before Hartley's death, and relates to the series of landscapes, portraits and figurative works, painted during his final years, which refer symbolically to the life and tragedy of the Mason family.

The artist Gerald Ferguson has surmised in the catalogue for the 1987 exhibition Marsden Hartley and Nova Scotia held at Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that the painting is "an aerial wreath of roses…floating on the water…inspired by the annual Fishermen's Memorial Service in Lunenberg [Nova Scotia] which Hartley attended after the drowning [of the brothers Alty and Donny Mason and their cousin Allen]. The service concludes by casting funerary wreaths upon the water for those lost at sea."

This stunning painting relates to the bouquet of flowers that Harley painted in 1937-1938 in memory of Gaston Lachaise, as well as to his final painting Roses (Walker Art Center)—a still life of roses, seaweed and seagulls, which appears to rise in triumph toward the heavens. The rose, which fades so quickly, has long been associated with romance, death and the evanescence of earthly beauties.

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