Page 24 - Studio International - August 1965

work 1s about some glorious space where events of
differing qualities occur-collisions, harmonious coup­
lings, shocks and somnambulistic drifting.
Such lyricism was, of course, unthinkable without
the climate of surrealism and Pollock's automatism. It
worked on the assumption that there are feelings and
images that live just below the threshold of conscious­
ness and that the proper moment and proper gesture
will materialise them in the form of a work of art. These
assumptions are still basic to Frankenthaler's esthetic.
The variety of climates she seeks within a single
painting was often expressed in her use of line. The
white unsized canvas that was so important in earlier
paintings was synonymous with air and with free
extension. Lines which often swelled to forms or
hovered near colour areas of ambiguous disposition
were projections of her feelings while navigating these
spaces. They had to do with 'standing in the middle and
letting things explode up and out'.
Colonising emptiness, Frankenthaler used sprays of
paint, drips, lopsided circles, dots and a host of small
elements to give variety of depth. Hers was a close-up
vision of the warmth, the embracing, intimate, whole­
ness of a specific atmosphere. Because she confined
herself to shallow spaces she was able to suggest
unlimited extension without ever giving the kind of
ultimate definition that makes for static form. If
lyricism is synonymous with an art of process, she is
a lyricist par excellence. There is, she says, a great gap
between an idea and what evolves.
In the course of her work, there have been certain
recapitulations. On various occasions she has sized her
Black w11h Shadow 1961 t1on was strong, immediate. 'When I was first in New canvases and painted with a more charged brush,
76 X 87 in.
Collection: Mr. & Mrs. York working I went out toward what moved me most. articulating her spaces more fiercely. At times she has
William Phillips DeKooning, Gorky, Pollock-I felt all at once: I like it, approached specific motifs, particularly between 1956
it puzzles me, what does it mean and how do they do it 7' and 1961, when objects and places are used to set off
Drawn especially to Pollock's work, it was not long the exploration of other more urgent feelings.
before she met the artist in his studio through her These other feelings are, for the most part, i nexpres­
friendship with critic Clement Greenberg. She saw si ble in language, but many of those who have studied
paintings stretched out wet on the floor. The experience her work have sought to translate the pictures into
'offered the beginning of a whole new dimension'. verbal currency. Often an association with landscape is
Stimulated by Pollock's example Frankenthaler aban­ cited, and it is most probable that Frankenthaler is
doned the cubist system and by 1952 had invented the peculiarly susceptible to landscape impressions. Yet
means to express her excitement. She set herself apart seeing is a subjective affair and what Frankenthaler sees
not only in terms of technique, but in terms of the is transformed by a subject in whom reciprocal impres­
special environment she conveyed in her paintings. She sions, interiorised emotions, cross-references and meta­
was able to do this because she saw the implicit phorical extensions have been worked upon by the
possibilities in Pollock's approach. imagination. No single impression can be traced.
In putting unsized canvas on the floor, working from Since, for Frankenthaler, seeing something out there is
the centre outward, dropping pools of thinned paint immediately transformed into a sensation of moving
into the close grain of the canvas, Frankenthaler within it, she is a true exponent of the 'interior land­
charted the spaces that are characteristic, unique to scape'. The interior landscape is nothing other than the
her. She was involved, as she said in a later interview, space of all time-the space in which we know our­
with 'making a picture "hold" an explosive gesture; selves existent-filled with emotions and events and
something moving in and out of landscapelike depths special occasions.
but flat in local areas-intact but not confined.' Specific occasions in Frankenthaler's paintings may be
The pale, flowing imagery in these early canvases occasions of dreamlike, softened abstraction, or of
reflected the unprecedented strangeness of the new glancing allusions to humorous objects, to nudes, to
approach. She had stood over her canvas. She had seen interiors, to Eros both in his violent and pacific guises.
everything from above. She had then stretched the When thematic materials emerged rather insistently,
canvas and placed it perpendicular to the floor. Already, roughly between 1957 and 1961, Frankenthaler's
in these transactions, a spatial decision was made paintings took a turn toward greater equilibrium. Her
which erased all previous perspectives. Venus and the Mirror for instance, is composed in
As she travelled over the large areas in these early relation to a decisive horizontal plane. Despite the
works, Frankenthaler modulated. At times an arabesque many intonations. the various kind of events are held
flowed grandly over the canvas; at times lines gave by a dominant pictorial device.
way to suggestive areas of shimmering tone-pale Here and in Nude of 1958 or Mother Goose Melody,
ochres, violets, flesh pinks. The lyricism in the early Frankenthaler introduces an idea which gradually
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