Mechanics of Flying

Gorky’s composition is filled with abstract shapes with indistinct references to aircraft machinery most clear in the centre of the piece. The colour scheme is limited to an ochre background, a navy and lighter blue, a terracotta and brighter red, and the greys and blacks of the machinery. The abstraction of the shapes in the painting could be symbolic of a wonderment the artist feels at the complexity of air travel. Emigrating to America in 1920 as a consequence of the Armenian Genocide, Gorky would have been travelling to a much more commercialised society with newly popular commercial aviation being one of America’s booming industries.