Page 46 - Studio International - June 1973

work to a conclusion by responding to each one-colour fields but he did use a very flexible MV: It's not that so much. If a painting has
successive situation with elements that he finds and rather banal structure on which to hang his many positive hues in it, then the act of
himself identified with. Does this relate to you emotive colour, which seemed to me to change perception is partly involved with hue
at all in any way ? with each painting. He did finally arrive at identification or registering colour in an
MV: Yes, I think it does. I don't work from any canvases which were pretty nearly one colour. intellectual sense. I am very much more
preconceived idea of what colours will be MV: But the range of formal invention in his interested in colour that doesn't assert its hue.
involved in a painting. I don't even think of mature work didn't vary very much. One knows JP: So a red picture is an identity thing and a
colours any more. What initially gets me going what a Rothko looks like basically. dark dense picture is an identification process.
is difficult to describe, but something to do with JP: Yes. A whole lifetime's painting of some MV: Something like that. Another important
manifesting a need of some kind which seems people has been composed of varying sizes of reason why these paintings are the way they are
to be related to things like 'thickness', 'richness', rectangles and so on. The formal structure of a right now is that when colour is used on a
`heavy densities', something deeply saturated. Rothko can vary enormously within the terms saturation or density level, it seems to operate
On other occasions it could be quite the of the two or three soft rectangles of colour that in a more kinetic way than would a simple
reverse, in fact a sense of something that is he suspends in a colour space. What I am trying positive hue. A pure red painting stays
almost not there at all. Anyway, once the field to get at is that the formal quality of your identifiably red in quite a wide range of light,
is established I place the element of several painting appears to be more to do with a rigid but a painting which is very nearly white, for
colours and develop the chromatic relationships idea of the colour as phenomenon, and yet example, with just the minutest touch of red
in a totally empiric and intuitive way, which paradoxically you are telling me that your mixed in it, will be very much more susceptible
sometimes means that I have to redevelop the paintings are about a highly charged emotional to changes in the colour of the illumination,
field all over again. situation. having a kind of ephemeral quality — film colour
JP: So the form of the painting is getting less MV: But this paradox is exactly what I'm after. almost.
important ? I once heard a recording of Bruno Walter JP: That's a physical factor. Doesn't that
MV: I don't know that the painting has got any rehearsing Mahler, and saying in effect to the interfere with your responsive need to
form. orchestra: 'Forget the emotion, just play the communicate an emotion, or are you interested
JP: Well, they seemed to me to have a similar right notes at the right tempi and it will all come in a very objective sense of it changing
form, in that the colour changed but the out fine.' In a way that is really what I'm trying constantly ? On the other hand, a dark picture
position of the elements and the size of the to do. doesn't do that, because it absorbs most of the
elements didn't vary very much. JP: I can understand that, and yet you say light and if it is black it reflects nothing.
MV: They don't. you are not concerned — to make an analogy — MV: But if it's got a fair amount of sheen on it,
JP: I find here a curious lack of consistency. with the notes, so much as you are with the it becomes a very lively surface.
Because if you are wanting to communicate feeling. JP: Oh, it's lively, but it's a relative situation.
directly what you call a thick kind of emotional MV: That's right. But the way I am trying to MV: I agree, it doesn't change quite so much,
sense of something, surely the formal quality approach this is by getting the notes right. but I've got dark pictures in my studio now,
of your pictures might in fact prevent this JP: The evidence for me, when I look at the where it is often very difficult to establish the
happening unless the form lends itself to this paintings, is that I am interested in your work exact colour.
very emotional kind of problem. primarily because I think they do what you JP: Yes, I understand that. This is true of the
MV: The only way I am interested in don't intend them to do. dark Ad Reinhardt paintings.
manifesting this experience is through colour, MV: What is that ? MV: Now that for me promotes an involvement
and therefore there doesn't seem to be any JP: They interest me mostly when they are in a surface, where after a while one begins to
reason why I should consider re-arranging the literally about what the paintings are made up get the message that the actual hue, making hue
formal side of what I do. I have eliminated from from, colour as phenomenon. To a great degree identifications, isn't really all that important.
my work things like compositional choice and they operate on me retinally, setting up all sorts JP: One thing that crops up here in talking
shape, so far as that is possible — and texture, of retinal situations. I remember one particular about what paintings mean and how they are
apart from what comes about by actually black painting; you had the element in the going to change in various kinds of light, is how
putting the paint down. What I'm left with is lower centre of the format and it set up colossal much do you consider the spectator ? When one
surface and colour. The problem is to make the diagonals across the surface. It inferred formal uses the word 'spectator', one is obviously
painting work through colour alone. things which were not there, and I found that calling upon one's knowledge of general
JP: Wouldn't it be logical to say then that if you very good. perceptual response in people, which is fairly
could mix up a colour that was completely MV: I can see that there are all sorts of formal measurable, and how that affects their
expressive in itself, you might as well paint a potentials in a structure of that kind, but they emotional situation in front of a painting. What,
one-colour canvas ? don't interest me. I have got myself into a in the broadest sense, are you trying to do ?
MV: No, because colour is a relative curious position where, having practically MV: That's very difficult to answer simply. The
phenomenon. eliminated all the picture making devices with position and scale of the small element I use is
JP: It's a relative phenomenon in terms of the exception of colour, I now find that hue very much more related to the spectator than
predictable and measured situations, and those itself is getting in the way. Colour as hue now to the overall field size, and the total effect of
things are 75% of our awareness, which one can seems to be less capable of producing the sort this brings about problems of how one positions
understand in a sense. But it seems to me that of experience that I'm after than the quality of oneself in relation to the whole painting. This
the formal arrangement of these elements which saturation and density. So that the work I'm process of adjustment to the field is very much
you have on your pictures takes away the doing now has the appearance of being very part of my intention, particularly in the way the
essential emotional quality which the dark or very light, and the difference between colour is revealed. I sometimes think that this
paintings could have. I would have said that paintings is more in terms of densities than small element has a kind of hypnotic effect
the elements are much more to do with hues. which may add something to the general
manipulation of colour in a natural responsive JP: Does each dark picture get nearer to the intention that I have for making a meditative
way than they are, as it were, carved out content you want ? If you find that hue is a kind of object, where the experience of colour
of a presupposed situation of them working nuisance or an encumbrance when you are can become more real than the painted
surface.
in every emotional context. One can make working is it because it sets up too many diverse
a reference to Rothko here. He didn't use emotional references ? August:1972.
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