Description:
abstract; squares and rectangles in tones of black
Label Text:
This work belongs to Ad Reinhardt’s signature series of black paintings, which the artist referred to as “ultimate” paintings.
He began working with blocks of color in the 1950s, moving from red and blue paintings to black. Although the black paintings appear to be solidly one color, they are painted with highly subtle gradations that can only be seen with patient looking. In this triptych (three panels), simple cross-beam shapes can be discerned in each of the canvases.
A prolific essayist and theorist, Reinhardt summarized his ideas in his 1962 manifesto “Art as Art”:
No lines or imaginings, no shapes or composings or representings, no visions or sensations or impulses, no symbols or signs or impastos, no decoratings or colorings or picturings, no pleasures or pains, no accidents or ready-mades, no things, no ideas, no relations, no attributes, no qualities —nothing that is not of the essence.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+2006.16 |
