Film Overview

The critic Robert Hughes has called Marsden Hartley "one of the four or five most important painters of the first half of the 20th century.” “Visible Silence: Marsden Hartley, Painter and Poet” is a deeply personal view of one of America’s most important painters and most enigmatic artistic spirits. “Visible Silence” is Michael Maglaras’s second exploration of the personality, art, and life of the great painter from Maine. His 2005 film release “Cleophas and His Own” captured the personal tragedy and artistic revelation of Hartley’s accidental sojourn in Canada in 1936. “Visible Silence” is an essay in film. Using forty-three of Hartley’s paintings and drawings, Michael Maglaras leads the viewer through this painter’s journey from hardscrabble beginnings in rural Maine to final but belated prominence on the world stage of art and ideas. Quotations from Hartley’s little-known poetical writings further reveal the depth of his solitude and creative genius. “Visible Silence” is documentary film making at its best. It is also the personal testament and confession of a film maker of “Bergman-like gravitas” (Victoria Dalkey, Sacramento Bee).