My Egypt

"My Egypt" by Demuth portrays a grain elevator from the artist's home town of Lancaster, PA. Demuth used oil paints to make this work, and this is significant because his ailing health from diabetes made it difficult to use such a meticulous medium. He clearly thought that the point of this piece deserved the same attention as the classical oil paintings. The angles of the light create triangular shapes, referencing the ancient pyramids. They light also seems to come from different angles at once, showing that the artist incorporated the aspect of time into the piece, much like the European artists before him had done. As he sat and painted the grain elevator, he included the different light angles created by the moving sun.

The title presents a sort of enigma, and it takes some historical digging to decipher the meaning. Demuth liked to paint the machines and buildings associated with mechanical progress and then give the works cryptic names, such as his other work "Incense of a New Church". His sense of the ironic relates to the Dada movement, and he and Marcel Duchamp were friends. He found the American aesthetic captivating, but the disinterest that the general public took towards his works and purpose vexed him greatly. As a result he strove to distance himself from the culture through the use of irony. He plays on both time and identity with his name "My Egypt"; it relates a modern structure to the ancient pyramids, and he claims that ownership belongs to either himself or America. In light of his dissatisfaction towards the contemporary public's artistic tastes, he may be claiming ownership of the beauty in America because it appeared that only he could appreciate it. Some think that he decided to reference the pyramids in this piece because his ailing health caused the idea of death to be prevalent in his life. Additionally, King Tut's tomb had been discovered only 5 years prior, and ancient Egypt fascinated many people at that time.


http://www.jstor.org.lib-ezproxy.tamu.edu:2048/stable/1180724

http://www.artbeyondsight.org/amart/charles-demuth.shtml