Page 32 - Studio International - July August 1974

Alpha-Pi 1961
Acrylic on canvas
102½ x 177 in.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

parts — almost the exact converse of Pollock's exposed at the edges of the image but still centres of the 'unfurleds'. Most of it seems
style. This is a valuable technique for the full muddied at the centre. Louis also tried slightly defensive, as if it must be proven that
expression of colour because colour by nature separating the runs of colour in a kind of non- there is 'really' something there. But this
is best seen spread out, and spreading covers connecting 'veil', but while hue showed pure, attitude is just part of the old bias that there
effects of connection, defeats connection. The the imagematic coherence of the 'veils' was must be something 'in' a painting, that a
`veils' are not Frankenthaler beyond Pollock lacking. painting isn't a painting unless a coherent
but Frankenthaler on top of Pollock — Pollock The 'unfurleds' solved all these problems, and image is maintained within. In fact, the
the framework and Frankenthaler the have the curious simplicity and obviousness of astonishing thing about the 'unfurleds' is
superstructure. all great inventions. Louis suddenly, so it seems, simply that the centre is perfectly empty, and
Though there are any number of great discovered that pictorial coherence could be that the paintings remain great pictorial art.
masterpieces of pictorial art among the strongly established by reversing the Louis showed us this nearly 15 years ago. He
`veils', one technical problem remained and assumption Cubism, and to some extent all gave us a new constructive basis for painting,
would remain until the 'unfurleds'. Louis painting before Cubism, had forced on but one so extreme that it is a little scary.
can be seen struggling with it in picture after painting: that visual integration of the picture Unlike the pictorial discoveries of Cubism, and
picture in the years of the late 5os. The 'veils' is achieved by putting the visible parts of the somewhat like those of Clyfford Still, what
brought out his great talent as a colourist, a painting together. Instead of accommodating the Louis laid down has been taken up slowly, if at
talent hidden in him, and to a large extent, edges of the picture, and fussing with the all, mainly by Jules Olitski. But the future of
hidden in modernist art. But the factors of design they imposed, the 'unfurleds' painting will certainly spread its roots in the
compositional technique of the 'veils' throw the parts of the painting against the fertile ground of Louis's 'unfurleds', from a
suppressed the full use of hue, which is the most edge, and make the edges do the job of holding series of paintings which went unnoticed when
effective component of colour. Pure or strong the picture together. By doing this, Louis turned they were painted, were slow to be critically
hue was kept from the 'veils' because running separation of parts into a virtue instead of a recognized, have barely been taken in as
different, or complementary, colours together liability, and the banked streams of pure hue influence by even the best and most serious
greys them; running similar colours together were entirely free to run separate, and to of our contemporary painters and are still
allows greater saturation but limits hue variety; give out the full character of their colour generally felt to be a little freaky, a little off-beat
running different colours down different parts and the sensuous liquid quality of flowing and probably nowhere near the centre of the
of the canvas reduces the power of the allover paint. mainstream of western art. q
image. In the later 'florals' pure hue was Much has been written about the empty WALTER DARBY BANNARD
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