Page 56 - Studio International - October 1970

2
Morris Louis
Omicron 1961
Acrylic on Canvas
103+ x 162+ in.
Courtesy Waddington Galleries
3
Hans Hofmann
Fell Euphony 1959
Oil on canvas
48 x 74 in.
Courtesy Waddington Galleries
4
Henri Matisse
Large Red Interior 1948
Oil on canvas
57+ x 38+ in.
Courtesy Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris

sensations of weight and the implication of
volume are inescapable.
Saturation differences can enter quite fortui-
tously into a painting by accretion, or as a
result of the differing organic origins of manu-
factured pigments. Some of Louis's Unfurled
paintings seem to me now to carry with them,
accentuated by the importance which gravity
played in his process, direct sensations of space
and volume, another approach to the attain-
ment of 'a truly plastic space' in accord with
Matisse's ambition, and that this occurs as a
result of the acceptance and use of differences
in the organic composition of pigments in
their raw state.
Rothko gave particular attention to building
up equivalences of saturation and exploited
sharp differences in colour density in the
service of imagery, rather than in an accept-
ance of literal differences and the directly
physical sensations of space and spread of
colour which Louis, Noland and Olitski
evoke.
The great aesthetic ideal, born of the roman-
tic movement, the identification of form and
feeling, became and remains classic for this
century. It is curious how the same tensions
which produced the vitality and range of
French art last century are still operating as
background to the aesthetic predicaments of
today, and in an even more exaggerated form.
cool blues. (This absence of extremes is also a ments of value which caused Matisse to On the one hand, the relative compatibility
function of the fact that raw cotton duck is expend so much nervous energy in their inte- of realism and hedonism which produced
cream rather than white in colour, and that a gration, to a format of figure-ground equiva- Impressionism is given a novel twist in Post-
mellow base thus effects all the relationships lence, relating a few areas of close-valued Painterly Abstraction. The blatant and exclu-
of colour adjacent to and overlaid upon it. colour in terms of weight and density, but the sive sensuality of Olitski's latest work is
This was particularly noticeable in the series roots of his pictorial imagination are in probably unprecedented in the history of
of horizontal-stripe paintings which Noland Matisse nonetheless. abstraction. On the other hand, the under-
produced in 1968-9.) Most writing about colour concentrates on currents of spirituality and romanticism which
The flight from any kind of dynamic has questions of hue and value at the expense of only the greatest artists can make compatible
accelerated in American painting since the the important factor of saturation, or density with realism, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Matisse
late fifties. Rothko is the only major colourist of pigmentation. A series of hues selected from and Pollock among them, struggle to find a
in America whose work is traceable to the kind across the spectrum and of equivalent value vehicle of revivification in a variety of diluted
of organization of colour found in Matisse. already carry with them quite different sensa- and castrated media. Post-Post-Painterly
Rothko reduced the 'fierce impulse', the tions of weight, which can be exaggerated by Abstraction must re-engage traditional issues
opposition of pure hues and the acute adjust- saturation. Even at this elementary level, of intensity, coherence and composition if its