A natural inspiration from Georgia O’Keeffe
Like any brilliant artist, Georgia O’Keefe’s imagination was fueled by a myriad of things. However, O’Keeffe’s inspiration lies primarily in the natural landscapes that surround her. The pieces he produced were most often related to his immediate surroundings and his personal life experiences. O’Keeffe’s forte was his use of perception. Many artists can paint a beautiful flower or a majestic mountain, but few can give the realistic magnificence that O’Keeffe brought to his art. His works reflect an intense observation and appreciation for nature. The color tones in his flower paintings are impeccably blended. Because he magnified his subjects, his paintings took on an abstract appearance.
Marriage and New York
The 1920s were an important time for Georgia O’Keeffe. Not only did she marry the famous photographer Alfred Stieglitz, but she also produced her first large-scale flower painting titled ‘Petunia No. 2’. During this time, he met many of Stieglitz’s modernist painters friends; Artists like Arthur Dove, Charles DeMuth, and Paul Strand are artists who profoundly affected their work.
Stieglitz frequently took Georgia to his family’s home on Lake George in the Adirondacks, where he produced many paintings of the area’s countryside. He also devoted himself to architectural themes, creating paintings of the New York skyscrapers that could be seen from his 30th-floor balcony at the Shelton Hotel. Because O’Keeffe’s inspiration came basically from nature, it’s interesting to speculate why he chose to paint the New York skyline. It could be argued that his painting ‘Radiator Building – Night’ (1927) has some seemingly natural elements. The smoke rising on the right side of the painting resembles clouds, and the reddish stripe on the left is reminiscent of a fading sunset. Also, the building rises into the sky, like a mountain would. Perhaps for O’Keeffe, the skyscrapers illustrated humanity’s attempt to create nature, or its need to challenge it.
The move to New Mexico
In the late 1920s, O’Keeffe began to tire of New York and went on a trip to New Mexico. She fell in love with the terrain and returned there every year until she moved there permanently in 1946. It was a new beginning for Georgia O’Keeffe, whose inspiration once again abounded when she began to paint the mountainous landscape and the bleached animal skulls. Sun. that covered the desert floor. She insists that the bones depicted in her work were not indicative of death, but rather of the eternal beauty of the desert itself. He reveled in the striking greenery and vibrant colors. Once again, his paintings took on a magnified quality, possibly a significant message that nature is greater than humanity and that its splendid beauty outshines us. Although artists use nature as their subject, nature will always be too much for an artist to contain.
