Page 37 - Studio International - March 1974

(1963) Stretched Drawing, cotton was
Stretched Drawing 1963
Charcoal pencil on cotton, 15 x 15 in.
Installation, studio wall, Bent Line Drawings, 1970
Ballpoint pen on polyester fabric and prototype for
a 'tape removal' painting
from canvas and each other with a surface
stretched, a grid was drawn on it in charcoal texture quite different from one 'locked field'
pencil, and then the material was unstretched of paint. In the closely related Winsor, Mayco
and re-stretched on a stretcher sized to 'fit' and the Delta paintings (as well as the
the grid so it bent around the three- Standard painting) between 1965-67, Ryman
dimensionality of its stretcher while presenting used the most simple and risky of these paint-
an almost square 'outline' barely within the application procedures : pulling one layer of
square of its frontal surface. As a 'stretched' paint horizontally from left to right with the
drawing, this is more involved with the relative `neutrality' of even-paint residue thickness
three-dimensionality of the fabric plane to the and 'straight' lines. And, as he said in the
whole piece than with the tensile potential Tuchman interview, ' . . . it was very difficult
of the fabric to modify linear configurations. not to fuss with them and go back . . . sometimes
Not so with the 1970 Bent Line Drawings, I just couldn't pull that brush the way I
although their stretch-draw-unstretch-restretch wanted. It's an amazing thing. It seems so
procedure was essentially the same. But now simple: you just pull the brush; you get the
the extraordinary elasticity of the material — a consistency of the paint right; pull it across the
surface. It seems like the simplest thing, but it
commercial 'stretch' polyester — multi-
directionally reactive to each aspect of the isn't. It doesn't work that way when you're
procedure, however sensitively manipulated by actually doing it. So I would miss a lot.' But he
Ryman to relate to the perfect (measured) got a lot, too — especially when you consider
square(s) of the ball-point pen drawing and the the sheer physical difficulty of compensating
thin feather-board `stretcher'-backing. These for the body's rotor aversion to straight
works thus have a congruity of materials and the horizontal arm and hand movements on the
procedures of their usage which is particularly scale of these over-five-foot works. For after
strong and fine. For even charcoal pencil might each time the brush began to leave a perceptibly
disappear during the manipulations of the thinner residue, another stroke: and that
polyester material; the oily ink of ballpoint compensation had to start again in a manner
pen is more adhesive to that fabric and also more matching the previous activity. And although
flexibly tensile in itself. And it is a 'drawing', the pulling-paint-across procedure is similar
not a 'painting', for dried paint — even on cotton in all these works, it is particularized in each by
canvas — cracks into non-adhesion during an the physical resistance of different brush-sizes
accentuated stretching and re-stretching process. (fully 12 inches wide for Mayco and the Delta
If Ryman were only 'into process' he might have series) and paint consistency (thin for the Delta
used paint and accepted its disappearance : but and thick for the Winsor series). And the
assuring direct evidence of his procedure in the beauty of the results is due not just to the
`final work' is part of his important integration successful 'evenness' of the operations or to the
of conceptions and their realizations into scale of brush-strokes to painting-size in
potential permanence. Winsor V and Mayco. It is also due to the
Potential permanence has to do with the `compositional' implications of these
manner of Ryman's application of paint. As any achievements of 'rote' craft application of one
house-painter or Old Master could tell you, one layer of paint: the verticals of brush-stroke
thick coat of paint applied in multiple directions beginnings are almost as pronounced as the
has a stronger chance of quickly cracking and horizontals of paint-absence, creating a paint
peeling than the even application of several thin surface looking as woven as it is not but, as its
coats in opposing regular directions; and after periodically perceptible canvas support actually
the third coat, the paint 'locks' into a stable is.
surface. Ryman has applied paint in many But in other paintings of this period and
many ways, and much of his early 6os later the paint surface is importantly 'woven'.
painting explored combinations of thin and In the prototype for works shown at the
extremely thick coats and strokes of paint galleries of Konrad Fischer and Yvon Lambert
within the same 'composition'. But even then in 1969, Ryman applied six successive
there were paintings whose random strokes of horizontal/vertical coats of polymer paint over
heavy impasto had an over-all evenness both of the reddish vinyl 'panels', their masking tape
thickness and of randomness. And in 1965 support, and the surrounding wall before
there was the important series of paintings removing the tape. 'You would see the surface
in which the strokes were regularized as which is a kind of woven surface because of the
continuous horizontal, vertical, and criss- horizontal/vertical brush-strokes,' he told
crossed brush-wide 'bands' across the total Phyllis Tuchman, 'it becomes almost a fabric-
surface of the work. This was not just that group like surface, but actually it's just the paint
of 10 to 12-inch-square paintings in oil, polymer, because you see the original surface.' It was in
and enamel paint on canvas (which might be the process of working on successive 'woven'
considered 'prototypes' for several years' work coats of the two 1965 5-foot-square oil and enamel
or as finished gems in themselves), although they paintings of even 'surface veils' on linen that
show this orthogonal procedure quite clearly. Ryman did his first 'unfinished' painting. For
The heavy impasto of the oil paintings is pulled the oil painting's intended matte surface he'd
in slightly separated brush-bands across the planned five coats, but after the fourth coat was
surfaces, accentuating their layered differences dried and sanded .I thought, it's really
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