The twentieth century is full of art-as-an-object theory and
practice which usually means severing connections with 'the world
outside' or introducing materials from 'outside' (sand papier
collé) not sanctioned by earlier technique. The scale of intimate
easel painting persisted, however, and it is a common reaction upon
seeing early concrete works to feel suffocated by the cabinet scale.
Newman's and Pollock's early big pictures, however, made it possible
to create works of art which are objects because they are large
enough to affect our perception of them in relation to their
surroundings. They create space by occupying it literally. Heads and
figures in front of small paintings or detailed paintings are
interruptions, as upsetting as a tall man in front of you at the
cinema. The paintings of Newman, however, survive overlapping by
people. What happens is that the figures become related to the
ambiance of the picture. Introduced between the picture surface and
ourselves, 'the others' are simply some of the permissible variables
in the reading of the work of art. Newman's pictures with their
stretching fields of colour, some wide, some narrow, always continue
above or beside the spectator and reappear. Their redundancy is such
that it survives a changing relation to its witnesses: his art is a
massive defeat of noise. This, combined with the spirit of gravity
and momentousness which is Newman's reason for working, justifies
such ambitious titles as Concord, Abraham, Adam
(as well as the Onement series). His art is like a rock.
The paintings
of Rothko (who was close to Newman and Still ten years ago in the
heroic phase of surface as space) do not admit us to mysterious
precincts, as Giacometti does: they face us: Rothko's clouds with
the weight of oceans or suns, dyed into rather than laid on the
canvas, vibrate, advance, and expand. He prefers his pictures to be
hung in groups, not spaced out in conventional good hanging: their
united effect stresses their environmental function. The space of
Still also starts at the surface and rises from it, but the
unexpected distribution of his colour-flashes and torn edges give
the spectator less freedom than Newman's or Rothko's easily
learnable forms, because there is
less redundancy in his economical forms.
continued
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