HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Carl Sadakichi Hartmann (November 8, 1867 – November 22, 1944) was an American art and
photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is emplo ...
critic, notable anarchist and poet of
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
and
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...
ese descent.


Biography

Hartmann, born on the
artificial island An artificial island is an island that has been constructed by people rather than formed by natural means. Artificial islands may vary in size from small islets reclaimed solely to support a single pillar of a building or structure to those th ...
of
Dejima , in the 17th century also called Tsukishima ( 築島, "built island"), was an artificial island off Nagasaki, Japan that served as a trading post for the Portuguese (1570–1639) and subsequently the Dutch (1641–1854). For 220 years, i ...
,
Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...
, to a Japanese mother Osada Hartmann (who died soon after childbirth) and German businessman Carl Herman Oskar Hartmann and raised in Germany, arrived in
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
in 1882 and became an
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
citizen in 1894. An important early participant in
modernism Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
, Hartmann was a friend of such diverse figures as
Walt Whitman Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among ...
,
Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of ...
and
Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...
. Around 1905, Hartmann was an occasional performer at the
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
Miner's Theater. His act involved a device which dispensed perfumes in a manner intended to be analogous to notes in a symphony, which was poorly received by the crowd. His poetry, deeply influenced by the
Symbolists Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and real ...
as well as orientalist literature, includes 1904's ''Drifting Flowers of the Sea and Other Poems'', 1913's ''My Rubaiyat'' and 1915's ''Japanese Rhythms''. His works of criticism include ''Shakespeare in Art'' (1901) and ''Japanese Art'' (1904). During the 1910s, Hartmann let himself be crowned King of the Bohemians by
Guido Bruno Guido Bruno (1884–1942) was a well-known Greenwich Village character, and small press publisher and editor, sometimes called "the Barnum of Bohemia." He was based at his "Garret on Washington Square" where for an admission fee tourists cou ...
in New York's
Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
. Hartmann wrote some of the earliest English language haiku. He was one of the first critics to write about
photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is emplo ...
, with regular essays in
Alfred Stieglitz Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was kno ...
's
Camera Notes ''Camera Notes'' was a photographic journal published by the Camera Club of New York from 1897 to 1903. It was edited for most of that time by photographer Alfred Stieglitz and was considered the most significant American photography journal of i ...
. Hartmann published criticism and conducted lecture tours under the pseudonym "Sidney Allen." He made a brief appearance in the Douglas Fairbanks film '' The Thief of Bagdad'' as the court magician. Later years found him living in
Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywoo ...
and, by 1942, on his daughter's ranch outside
Banning, California Banning is a city in Riverside County, California, United States. The population was 29,505 as of the 2020 census, down from 29,603 at the 2010 census. It is situated in the San Gorgonio Pass, also known as ''Banning Pass''. It is named for Ph ...
. Due to his age and health conditions, Hartmann was one of only a few Japanese Americans on the West Coast to avoid the mass incarceration during World War II, although the FBI and local officials visited the ranch often to conduct investigations. In 1944, he died while visiting another daughter in St. Petersburg, Florida. A collection of his papers is held at the University of California, Riverside, including correspondence related to his obtaining permission to remain in Banning during the war.


Bibliography

*''Christ: A Dramatic Poem in Three Acts'' (play, 1893) *''Buddha: A Drama in Twelve Scenes'' (play, 1897) *''Mohammed'' (play, 1899) *''Schopenhauer in the Air: Seven Stories'' (1899) *''Shakespeare in Art'' (1900) *''A History of American Art'' (1901) *
Japanese Art
' (1903) *
Drifting Flowers of the Sea and Other Poems
' (1904) *
Landscape and Figure Composition
' (1910) *''My Theory of Soul Atoms'' (1910) *
The Whistler Book
' (1910) *
My Rubaiyat
' (1913) *''Permanent Peace: Is it a Dream?'' (1915) *
Tanka and Haikai: Japanese Rhythms
' (1916) *
The Last Thirty Days of Christ
' (1920) *''Confucius: A Drama in Two Acts'' (play, 1923) *''Moses: A Drama in Six Episodes'' (play, 1934) *''Buddha, Confucius, Christ: Three Prophetic Plays'' (reprint collection, 1971)


References


Further reading

* * *''Minutes of the Last Meeting'' Gene Fowler, Viking Press, 1954 (Reminiscences of Hartmann from his final days in Hollywood) *''The Modern School Movement'' Paul Avrich, AK Press, 2006 (First published in 1980 by Princeton University Press)


External links

* *
Sadakichi Hartmann papers
at
University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in a suburban dist ...

Sadakichi Hartmann correspondence and manuscripts
at
Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hartmann, Sadakichi Photography critics German emigrants to the United States German people of Japanese descent American poets American poets of Asian descent People from Banning, California 1867 births 1944 deaths People from Nagasaki American male dramatists and playwrights American dramatists and playwrights of Japanese descent American writers of Japanese descent