Page 34 - Studio International - February 1970

as the verticals in Newman's paintings to Even without this critical hostility it would pigmentation, but its physical proportions
which it relates. not be surprising for Newman to have gone have the lofty dominance of the equally
I am not surprised that Newman's 1950 and through a period of reflection and self- sized Now II of 1967. Onement No. 6 of 1953
1951 exhibitions met ignorance, hostility, and criticism after his wide ranging burst of relates to both the earlier Onements and the
complete incredulity on the part of the New activity. He had never been one to ignore a 1963-64 18 Cantos in format; but its scale of
York art establishment. Even today, in a con- work once 'complete'. In the late 1940s he had physical area relates to the earlier Tundra,
text extraordinarily influenced by twenty ruminated over Onement No. 1 for a year, and while its colour scale of brilliant blue-white
years of Newman's activity, his early work is he was disturbed by the sale of Euclidean contrast relates to the 1967 Profile of Light.
still shocking in its variety of language, in- Abyss from its immediate exhibition because Adam's colour scale of reds against brown
tensity of feeling, and austerity of scale it prevented him from living with and coming extends that of Onement No. 1 and 3; its
dominated by wholeness. And when it was to grips with the painting. And in the early verticals equi-distant from the lateral edges
first exhibited, there was nothing to prepare fifties he had a wealth of unsold work to live can be seen as a precursor of the format of
the ground for its open reception: Pollock had with, modify and improve, and instigate The Third (1962) and Who's Afraid of Red,
worked in scale and size relating to a viewer's further explorations. Vir Heroicus Sublimis and Yellow and Blue II (1967), while its opposition
body-sense as a whole; Rothko had used the Adam received additional stripes which im- of lateral band and sharp line appears in the
tactility of canvas texture, and Still the tac- proved their essential characters ;8 more than 1962 fifth and sixth Stations of the Cross. Adam
tility of torn impasto surfaces as integral parts ten years later the addition of a lateral edge is also roughly the size of The Gate of 1954; the
of their painting's expression. But no one had band changed Resurrection so distinctly that colours of The Gate are virtually identical to
understood all these aspects of style as inter- it was re-titled Be II. These historical addi- those in Uriel of 1955; and Uriel is the same
related in the total plastic language of pain- tions are not immediately apparent or in- size as both the earlier Vir Heroicus Sublimis
ting as related to sculpture. And no one had trinsically relevant in any of these paintings and the 1966-67 Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow
achieved such intensely poetic metaphors now. Just this fact points to Newman's and Blue III.
through austere means almost scientific in the peculiar ability to stand outside even his own Let's look to the centre of this maelstrom, at
isolation and exploration of individual pheno- history to re-enter it through his particular Uriel and The Gate. Both establish verticals by
mena. I doubt if Newman expected critics, sense of timeless time. It is as if his own body the sharp juxtaposition of areas of colour
curators and collectors to give up enough of of 'past' painting and sculpture after 1950 different in pigment texture, warmth, tonal
the traditional props in approaching painting formed a present context richer in potentiali- value and hue. This is very different from the
to comprehend his achievement instantane- ties than that of his contemporary or 'primi- way in which verticals read as concrete
ously; but it must have hurt him deeply to find tive' colleagues; and his confrontations with entities separately coloured from their ground
cool silence from his artist friends and col- himself through his own past opened future in Adam and Vir Heroicus Sublimus. It is as if
leagues at the 'Subject of the Artist' school as possibilities as well. Newman, after making the vertical physi-
they simultaneously modified their sense of In this past and future dialogue in the pre- cally concrete in Here I, was turning to the
scale to his over-all wholeness—and were sent, Newman's work of the 1950s obviously concrete physicality of pigmented, coloured
praised and supported by museums and col- plays a pivotal role. Ulysses of 1952 relates to surfaces in his paintings. The pale, cold sort of
lectors on this basis.8 both the earlier Abraham and Eve in format and duck-egg 'sky' blue has a thin, opaque, very
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