Page 40 - Studio-International-January-1974

transcendent states that function to determine
metaphysical insight in a manner ironically more
analogous to the way Kant's categories as pure
concepts of the understanding necessarily
underlie empirical judgments.) As Newman
treated it, the initial problem then became how
to create a 'meaningful' image without
recourse to myth or legend. This, he stated, was
now being created directly out of our own
feelings; an image that by contrast to the
associational forms of the past is self-evident,
real and concrete. This image, it is also implied,
is universal: 'it can be understood by anyone,
etc.' What appears on the face of it to be an
extravagant and vaguely supported claim will
become clearer if Newman's remarkable use of
'percepts' is briefly considered. For as will be
seen from the experience of his paintings, an
idea like chaos, for example, need not only be
understood as a concept (through rational
definition), but might equally be experienced in
a more specific sense as a felt state or condition.
By operating on this level of cognition it then
became possible for Newman to conjoin the
absolute aesthetic effects of colour and
proportion with those of metaphysical 'ideas'.
In fact I hope to show that it was through a
lucid ordering of percepts rather than through
allusion or association that Newman created a
`sublime' and 'revelatory' art of the highest
order.
Through the titles of his paintings Newman
often drew attention to a mythology that
corresponds with his subject matter. The
experience of his paintings might be enriched
through this allusion to myth, or it might serve
to direct attention to the 'type' of feeling
projected. But to approach the meaning of his
paintings from Onement I onwards, either
through an associated symbolism or related
sentiment, it should become evident, is also to
assume a 'mental attitude' that detracts from the
immediate or specific insight his paintings
project. In some of his paintings he emphasized
indirect allusions, and his monumental
sculpture Broken Obelisk (26 ft x 10 ft 6 in),
1963/67, is, for example, overtly symbolic;25
but the issue here is a matter for discretion
rather than dispute. As also partly suggested
by Don Judd and Lawrence Alloway, Newman's
paintings are best described through their
`specificness' and 'wholeness'.
Newman's initial concern with the modern
in art, as a process of beginning again,
continually refocussed his attention on the act
of creation as a symbolic subject. Early in 1948 he
put masking tape down the centre of a small
canvas (27 x i6 in.) and painted in a dark red
cadmium background. He then roughly
brushed in a light red cadmium line down the
full length of the masking tape to test the colour.
Newman's thought and progressive drive
towards an 'abstract' imagery, had finally
constituted itself into what was to become the
prototype of his later style. Titled Onement
Barnett Newman Tertra 1964. Moderna Museet,
Stockholm
30