Page 47 - Studio International - November 1970

foresaw radically different possibilities. In his When a certain colour seems the obvious avoided by most art writers, Noland, in his
work, the stripe serves as an increment of space choice sometimes I deliberately select its move away from object-oriented heraldic
division and a matrix for complex colour complementary in order to create problems painting, beginning in 1967, consciously or
interaction. From Pollock, Davis learned that that stimulate tension in the picture. You unconsciously strayed into Davis's aesthetic
line, relieved of its traditional responsibility might say it is a kind of masochistic approach pasture (complex-colour stripes). He has
to outline or define form, possesses unexpected to colour.' painted a number of brilliant pictures by
properties. In attenuation, it tends to elude It is somehow appropriate that Davis feels a utilizing the elongated horizontal stripe for-
identification as shape. special kinship with Baroque and Rococo mat and he had lent the new work his own
When the 'lines' become narrow coloured artists, admiring such unlikely predecessors as special emphasis, but Davis's influence is un-
stripes, as in Davis's paintings, shape is very Tiepolo, Canaletto and other 'information- deniably present and should be noted.
nearly eliminated and a new kind of colour laden' painters. 'Lacey artists', he calls them. Noland has introduced an exhilarating sensa-
syntax is permitted to emerge. This special For a long period, complexity has been a leper tion of movement to the stripe format by
quality enables Davis to explore colour with- word in the critical lexicon. Seldom is the permitting the coloured bands to stretch out
out the distraction of more conventional issue raised in the art writing of the Sixties. If taut and uninterrupted over vast areas of
shape manipulation and has served to make mentioned at all, it is generally in reference viewing space. Such 1967 paintings as Via
his work until recently the least adulterated by to some other quality or having to do with Blue, Magus, Continue and Graded Exposure
formal invention of all colour painters. systems permutations. This is indeed curious are successful examples. The use of assorted
To quote D. M. McKay: 'In terms of selec- in an epoch given over to a scrupulous ren- widths of stripes, from the extremely narrow
tive information content, one of the simplest dering of what constitutes the phenomenology to the ponderously thick, provided Noland
stimuli is an infinitely extended field of regu- of perception. Accepted as categorically dis- with the vitally-needed vertical increments
larly spaced parallel lines since it is invariant tinct modes of expression are material (Andre, to combat the impression that his earlier
under all translations in one direction.' Judd), scale (Held, Smith, Bladen), place (equal-width) stripe paintings ended up
In Davis's paintings, we are forced to see the (Andre, Smithson), shape (Stella, Morris), being too much extension and not enough
canvas not as shape, but as matrix. As matrix, environment (Grosvenor, Flavin) and even anything else. Noland, as both Jane Harrison
the canvas can be subjected to unlimited ex- balance (Serra, Bladen). Yet complexity is Cone and Michael Fried have pointed out,
tension and division, enabling colour to work generally assumed to be a quantitative issue has been involved primarily with perceptual
out a fuller identity. (Configural wholes tend alone, involving little more than a numerical velocity and his elongated stripe paintings are
to inhibit colour by making it simply another increase in relationships. Although there is complex interpolations of the different rates at
detail in the affirmation of shape.) Where this factor, works of bona fide complexity are which the eye follows bands of varying widths
Josef Albers must produce a series of inde- actually different in kind. They seem to in- and colours along horizontal axes. Unlike
pendent paintings to explore any one colour volve an attempt on the part of the artist to Davis, his handling of the stripe format serves
situation in depth, as he did with 16 reds, be so fully relational in an extended arrange- to celebrate the 'framing edge' or canvas shape.
Davis can do so in a single work. ment of parts that, for all practical purposes, More recently, however, Noland seems to
He is one of the few recent abstract painters shape is of no interest; it is almost non-existent. have turned his back on colour complexity and
to take expressed advantage of the fact that Davis is such an artist. even the super-long canvas to embrace a style
modular structured paintings may have as Davis's approach to pictorial order is curious. of three or four coloured stripes placed judici-
few or as many parts as desired. As Davis is Beginning as far back as 1960, he had repeat- ously and horizontally on a rectangular canvas
well aware, this entails special risks. So in- edly relied on stripe clusters of two colours in a of more conventional proportions. Minus the
sistent is the cacophony of colours assaulting 1-2-1-2 rhythm spread over broad expanses of dramatically attenuated matrix, the stripes no
the eye on first viewing of his large works that canvas to provide rest areas for the eye. The longer 'speed'. In these latest works, several of
the effect is sometimes one of congestion or effect, especially when the two colours are which were included in the Geldzahler show
confusion. But in Davis's case, it is a risk close in value, is that of a single broad plane at the Metropolitan Museum, he appears to
well worth taking. In the best of his large of almost flat colour. When three or four of have painted himself into a box. If he moves
paintings, the hyperactive clamour of his these clusters are positioned at strategic inter- to a greater dependence on complex colour in
colour tends to subside in time to be replaced vals, an expressive balance between active and his stripes, there is Davis. If he continues to
by an image of stately grandeur, even ele- passive areas is realized. In the absence of the shift a handful of stripes about on a coloured
gance. In his recent work, the quality of con- traditional figure-ground relationship so com- field, there is Barnett Newman. The intro-
gestion has been virtually eliminated or at mon in other colour painting, this compositional duction of horizontality to the stripe format
least de-emphasized through the liberal device lends Davis's work a spatial quality all guarantees him nothing. It will be interesting
utilization of areas of unpainted canvas its own. In the very early work as well as the to see his next move.
between clusters of stripes. most recent paintings, he assigns this parti- In contrast to Noland, Davis's recent work
Davis is flamboyantly intuitive in his approach cular function to unpainted canvas. Repeti- represents an accelerated interest in colour com-
to colour. Unlike most other colour painters, tion also plays a special role in Davis's plexity but with a new focus. As noted earlier,
he is no systematic artist. Not surprisingly, he work. In an 'art of interval' such as his, this many of his past works suggest the 'motor-
admits an admiration for Picasso's colour would seem inevitable. He believes that progressive' arts in his flaunting of pictorial
dictum: 'When I run out of red, I use green.' `equal rhythm phrasing', as he calls it, has cohesiveness and the exploration of multiple
It is not that Davis is indifferent to the recti- been used expressively by a number of great points of interest. In the recent works,
tude of colour, but that he subscribes to a free- artists and composers of the past. As an introduction of broad areas of unstained
wheeling attitude which permits him to 'stay example, he likes to cite a passage in a Vivaldi canvas between multi-coloured clusters of
off balance' in his choice of hues. He likes bassoon concerto in which the bassoonist stripes reaffirms the general impression of
`grouchy colours', as he calls them, combined repeats almost endlessly the same note. 'For spatial fracture and a new emphasis on the
with the saccharine tonalities of a Boucher or some reason,' Davis said, 'I find this tre- `partitioning of form'. Where this will eventu-
Fragonard. The resulting juxtaposition en- mendously exciting. There is some of the same ally lead, it is too early to tell. Meantime,
sures the ambiguity he wants in his work. preoccupation with repetition in my 20-foot, Davis, continuing his decade-long intercourse
`I need to surprise myself and that isn't easy,' narrow-stripe paintings. Repetition has a with the stripe format, is offering up a graphic
he has stated. 'It seems I am always second- certain built-in intensity.' demonstration of the intensity of expression
guessing colour choices to avoid triteness. While the subject has been conspicuously that often accompanies artistic fanaticism. q