Sheeler Vs. Fugue Analysis

Fugue (fig. 3), on the other hand, is an industrial landscape of a small power plant in New Bedford, Massachusetts that used to power electric trolleys, painted in 1940 (MFA). Sheeler was commissioned to create a series of paintings that fit under the theme “power,” and this was one of the results. Sheeler wrote regarding this scene, “I was on a motor trip through New England and in passing through New Bedford in the late afternoon, I came upon this subject unexpectedly. It was a breath-taking sight. I walked around for several hours” (Sheeler). For this particular painting, he photographed the power plant and faithfully based his paintings off of these photos to ensure accuracy (fig. 2). This was a new approach for him, very unlike View of New York. For Sheeler, “photography
Rather than having his crafts compete, Sheeler uses them to advance each other, and thereby create, for him, a truer thruth.
However, in proper modernist fashion, Sheeler stuck true-to-form, but not true-to-detail. He emphasizes the most formal aspects of the composition: the spacing of the chimney structures, the cylindrical and rectangular shapes, and the industrial colors. ‘“Every picture should have a steel structure, and, by frankly revealing it instead of covering it with embellishments, I believe that my new work shows a pronounced change,” says Sheeler. All the “upholstery,” the purely descriptive parts of these pictures, has been stripped away; nothing is left but lines, masses; even color is forced into an abstract role. Naturally this retreat from realism is conducted in