Conversation-Sky and Earth by Charles Sheeler Analysis Essay

Conversation-Sky and Earth is a piece created by Charles Sheeler in the 1940, this magnificent piece of art is placed in the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, TX. This piece was placed there in 2009. The visual created by Charles Sheeler is a painting of the Hoover Dam, but the focal point of the painting is of the electrical tower that is placed in front of the Hoover Dam. The Electrical tower has the ability to steal the show with Sheeler’s ability to show the steel strussels cut vertically and horizontally throughout the piece of art. The only way one can see the Hoover Dam is by looking through the Electrical tower Sheeler has placed in front of the godly looking Hoover Dam. To the right of the Hoover Dam you will see a steep cliff covered throughout with boulders of various sizes. The top of this cliff demonstrates the quantity of which the electrical towers have taken over this place in our country with another two on top of this boulderous cliff. Sheeler has taken over the last section of the painting with the wires flying though the blue clear sky, as though there is not one natural thing left in Nevada. Sheeler’s final addition to the painting is the use of ceramic insulators that create black pillars on either side of the electrical tower with his use of repeating circles.

Although many humans while looking at electrical towers may never spend the time to see the great detail placed in them, that is what Sheeler has done with it being the focal point of his art piece. He draws your attention to it by making everything behind this tower faded and lacking detail. With the electrical tower in the middle and front of the picture and the upward view on the electrical tower, Scheeler has taken away the middle ground of the art piece. On the right we see this boulderouse cliff, this magnificent light brown cliff with hints of grey does not bring detail to any of the boulders. Same as with the Hoover Dam to the left, while some may call this one of the greatest inventions created by man, it does not feel that way looking at this painting, with it lacking anything more than just a white background. Although you see a beautiful blue drift into an aqua in the sky, you see that no detail has been added to it, other than the wires from electrical towers cutting through it. While using oil paint throughout the entirety of this painting, Scheeler makes not one spot in the background dark. Scheeler puts the sun glimising throughout the painting, but unlike how it creates detail to the electrical tower, it fades the entirety of the background to at first glance just colors. 

Our eyes being drawn to the electrical tower is no mistake when Scheeler created this piece of art. You can see the great detail of the sharp steel lines created throughout the cletrical tower. This electrical tower also has the only dark paint in the painting, with both sides of the electrical tower being lined with black disks used as insulators. These not only being part of the electrical tower itself, but placed to take attention away from the Hoover Dam and the cliff, with them cutting each object in half. This piece demonstrates that although the Hoover Dam used to be the greatest engineering building in the world and the mountain at one point was wonderful, we have a new player in town. America, looking at the Hoover Dam as a sign of being able to accomplish anything, now feels even more is possible with the new addition of high powered electricity, being accessible throughout the country.