Page 32 - Studio International - February 1966

colour-scales alternate, as do deep space (from the
great plain) and silhouetted forms (from the peninsula),
often in the same work. The one had taught him space,
the other light, but they were not yet fused. There
followed southern landscapes and still-lives : non-
naturalistic, strong in colour, but without the feeling-
tone of the Expressionists. The contours of the object
are corroded by the background on all sides; in the
still-lives the forms disintegrate into light-waves. The
backgrounds tend to rise up, as in the heirarchic com-
positions of the European Primitives. Gradually, from
the end of 1947, the colours paled, then shifted to
earth-tones, the contours hardening. Landscape and
still-life progressively fused into surrealistic scenery.
In 1949 there came a scut, a painting which arrived
before its time, announcing a not-yet-existent period.
The work, which he numbered E60, contains essentially
his whole development—a rectangle, symmetrically
placed on a blue ground, a white circle, a white line
in the middle; the blue translucent, luminous, and
striated with wavy forms like clouds. The transparent
disc functions like a lens. Seen through it, both the
background and the white 'clouds' change in colour or

390/63 1963 Gagarin 1961
Oil Oil
55 1/4 x 48 7/8 in. 55 1/2 x 61 5/8 in.

are amplified. The geometric forms thin out like a
screen on the blue, while lower down one feels that
they vibrate and glow. Weight and solidity dissolve.
In the years following, Geiger worked slowly towards
this position. The forms are flat and tend towards the
geometrical ; but the ground-tone is spatial, the colour
full of light. These paintings violate the rules of
geometric art right from Constructivism to present-day
Hard-Edge or Op. The painting numbered 196E (1952)
is typical. A red form is projected on a picture-space,
the latter graduated down from brown to an off-white.
Flat form against deep space—and then hung from the
top.