#Speculative Pentimenti

[forcedhesitation]

hey, no worries! like I said, that wyll was rewritten during EA was something I should have included in my original commentary, because of how important it is to understanding how wyll's current story has even less material than karlach's, despite karlach being created and introduced as a character during EA.

I do think it's fair to judge the game based on current live material, but how fruitful that analysis will be will depend on what you're judging, and for what purpose. when it comes to conducting an investigation into why certain issues are present in the game's narrative, I would say it is necessary to consider the "rejected" drafts, because not only do they provide useful context for understanding how those issues might have arisen, but also because seemingly rejected ideas from earlier iterations of the game currently exist as narrative pentimenti. perhaps we're not meant to see a particular element of the story a certain way, because it's been revised. but the revision is weak, and is easily worn away by time and a keen eye.

as I've mentioned before, it's easier to overlook these remnants as weak points in the writing of characters with more material, like astarion or shadowheart, but I find it impossible to ignore them when dissecting the stories of wyll or karlach. while we may disagree on whether wyll is meant to be paralleled to balduran, you're right in saying before that the fact I am able to even come to that conclusion and write thousands of words on that connection indicates a serious lack of clarity in what they were trying to communicate to players. I think that because of those narrative pentimenti, it's likely that wyll's story wasn't as drastically changed as some may believe, but bringing up the upper city is a good point because the scrapping of that area before live release means that there's a possibility the wyrmway wasn't the original end point to wyll's quest.

I am not sure of what exactly they had planned for astarion and wyll in these areas, but I do have an idea of what might have been the plan for karlach's story. right now, if you complete the "disable the steelwatch" quest, you will learn of a location in the upper city called "the high house of wonders." it is a massive gondian temple full of the many inventions created by the gond people to aid baldurians. seeing as karlach's infernal engine was a prototype for the core that powers the steelwatchers, and gortash was both the one who sold her to zariel and the one who forced the gondians to build the steelwatch, it seems rather probable that whatever quest material karlach might have had in the upper city would have had to do with the gondians and their temple of inventions. my speculation for what wyll's quest might have explored is perhaps either something to do with florrick (seeing as she leaves to the upper city once you rescue her), or to do with the corruption present in the flaming fist, as that was a loose end until they added the epilogue and had wyll explain that his father was reeducating the fist using what he's learned from wyll's story. maybe, had the upper city remained in the game, the wyrmway quest would have just been about the emperor. or maybe it was always meant to be part of wyll's questline, but the weak points of this quest's storyline wouldn't be as painfully noticeable, because there would have been story given to wyll in the upper city that would have made the wyrmway actually feel more like a satisfying conclusion.

I do think the problems with karlach's quest material can be compared with wyll's, because of how intertwined their stories now are, but there's still a fundamental difference to consider between them. I've read that karlach was originally an npc who was changed into an origin companion, whereas wyll was always an origin companion. she also underwent many revisions before they arrived at the karlach we have now, while wyll experienced one major rewrite that was meant to alter the elements of his character EA players were complaining about. what happened with karlach is more comparable to halsin's situation, since they were both npcs upgraded to companions, but at a very late point in the game's development. I know halsin was upgraded to a companion to meet player demand, although it is unclear to me whether karlach was always meant to be a companion, and was simply introduced as an npc first. no matter the case, I find the lack of attention given to wyll to be far more damning of a mistake, because of how long they've had to produce a finished story for his character, and because they only ever changed him in response to complaints that were largely driven by racism.

but you are right, there is still some hope it will be fixed. while I am not optimistic about the possibility, it is nonetheless a possibility. who knows, maybe there is some truth to my theory that an executive authority is responsible for the lack of communication about wyll's mistreatment, and others at larian do wish to fix the disparity. however, it is equally possible that it was decided that he just isn't a priority. a depressing thought, considering that the amount of material wyll has, as measured in hours, is like... a third or a fourth of what astarion and shadowheart have, I think it was? I do hope they'll make an effort to rectify that. I know I'm not the only person who's criticised larian for this, and not the only person who's written out ideas for how they could improve wyll's quest. we all now know that fanworks can have an impact on how larian might alter the game in the future. and while I find that practice to be objectively bad, at least in the way larian is carrying it out, it could have some actual constructive use, in the case of wyll. larian just...needs to get their priorities in order, and yes, stop listening to the people who only care about the romance aspect of the game.

whoever made the decision to demote the resolution to wyll's story to a subquest is either unqualified to even be making that decision and should be replaced, or they are qualified, and should be disposed of, because they have demonstrated that they are not even familiar with the material they are making a decision about.

i've spoken about the wyrmway before, and as I said then, if there was anything that this quest needed, it was to be expanded. after rereading my original commentary, I decided to expand on my thoughts about the quest. so, here is a more extensive exploration of why I think the wyrmway quest is so important, and how I would personally improve the narrative, so as to give wyll a better resolution to his story.

wyll's whole quest has elements of fairy tales woven into it, and his character is an archetypal fairy tale prince. concluding his personal story by having him "slay the dragon" in the wyrmway is brilliant, as it follows the narrative of a typical fairy tale, and ties back to a dialogue of wyll's in act 1. after you've spoken to raphael for the first time, he tells you a tale his father once read to him, "the kind with a hero, a villain, and a moral." beyond this short story reflecting many different layers of wyll’s past, it also serves as a guideline for how wyll's quest plays out. but the wyrmway quest is necessary in order for it to play out properly, as it is there that the moral is fully revealed.

at the wyrmway, you learn that ansur, the "heart of the gate," is actually dead. well, undead. in meeting ansur, you learn the truth behind the emperor's identity and what led to ansur's death. and it is what led to ansur's death that reveals the moral of wyll's tale. it was ansur's rigid adherence to his lawful good moral alignment that ultimately destroyed him, and the relationship he had with balduran. and this was because he could not see his old friend as a person any longer, only a monster. ansur's refusal to compromise his values, rather than reconsider his perspective and hear his friend out, is clearly a parallel to ulder exiling wyll from baldur's gate, because he valued his duty to the city more than his own son. this is a truly ingenious way of criticising ulder's actions, and wonderfully ties the moral of wyll's story into the game's greater question of "what truly makes someone a monster?" moreover, all of this is necessary for a proper resolution to wyll's story, as it allows for ulder to show wyll that he's willing to break away from the mentality that lost ansur everything, so that he may properly reconcile with him.

by downplaying the importance of this quest, larian is not only weakening the aforementioned parallels between ansur & ulder and wyll & balduran, but also minimising the importance of ulder echoing balduran, when he says that wyll himself will be the city's saviour. he says this in response to the one instance in the ENTIRE game, that I can think of, where wyll openly admits to feeling defeated. some of wyll's dialogue post quest completion reveals that this is because he hoped that enlisting ansur's help and saving the city would have been his shot at "redeeming" himself to the city, and to his father. we know that wyll never needed to redeem himself, and that he's never done anything wrong. but despite any resentment he may express over being exiled, he never really blames his father for abandoning him, because his father is "good" and was merely "doing his duty." so when balduran tells wyll that he never needed ansur, that he is the heart of the gate, and then ulder echoes that sentiment to wyll when he returns from the wyrmway...ulder is finally showing wyll that he meant his apology and that wyll is was always good enough. it was ulder who wasn't good enough, much like it was ansur who was wrong for refusing to reconsider his morals. and this is then later reflected in the dialogue you can get with blade of avernus wyll in the epilogue, where he tells you how his father's changed his approach to governance and has become far more merciful.

now, if you're unfamiliar with wyll's quest, or perhaps with baldur's gate altogether, and are merely reading out of curiosity, you may go "wow, bumble! this sounds like a marvellously written story! I cannot possibly fathom how people are dissatisfied with this! or why larian would demote it to a sidequest!" I'd say your reaction is the result of not having the full picture. what you've read thus far merely outlines some core elements of wyll's story, and why they're important, without really discussing how successfully this narrative is executed in the game, or the way that larian & the fandom treat wyll. poorly, is the word I'd use in all three cases. the narrative is executed poorly, and he is treated poorly by both the devs and fans.

in respect to the narrative of his quest, I'll begin by saying that I believe that the idea behind the quest is great! the commitment to the fairy tale theme is incredible and works wonderfully for wyll's character. subverting our expectations of heroism and villainy through the tale of ansur and balduran is clever, and using that story to explore the relationship between ulder and wyll is, as I said before, brilliant. I truly enjoyed wyll's story as much as I enjoyed that of astarion, who most people on social media know has a very emotional and beautiful resolution to his quest. but I mention the beloved bloodsucker not for the purpose of praising his writing. I mention him, because I feel that his quest's overall narrative feels as satisfying as it does because he is given a lot of material all throughout the game. the same could be said of shadowheart, who has roughly the same amount of material as him. reaching the conclusion of their stories, despite any weak points in their writing, ultimately feels fulfilling for the player, because they've been through a lot with that character. but what of the true heart of the gate, our dearest prince wyll? well, out of the six origin companions, wyll has the least amount of material in his story. yes, the son of duke ulder ravengard, one of the most important npcs in the entire game, has the least amount of story material. astarion and shadowheart, conversely, possess no true tie to the central narrative of the game, but have the most material. now, rather than making an effort to rectify this atrocious disparity, larian chooses to relegate the conclusion of wyll's quest to a place of lesser significance, all while providing new material to less important characters instead, like gortash and halsin. gortash, who is not only bane's chosen, but also the villain at the heart of karlach's story. yet, the new material he was given implicates a more intimate relationship between him and the dark urge, and has nothing to do with karlach whatsoever. halsin, on the other hand, was originally meant to be nothing more than an npc, yet he now possesses five unique kisses, on top of several greetings for a romantic partner, which is something wyll still lacks entirely, even after six major patches and seventeen hotfixes.

And what of the wyrmway itself? I will say that the area is notably...underwhelming, for the lair of a legendary dragon, but the same could be said about the area every companion's quest concludes at. so I will not delve into how I feel that area could be structurally expanded. what I will talk about, is what I mentioned above- the narrative. I've seen a lot of hatred for the emperor's reveal, but I do not think that the reveal in itself is the problem. what is rather the problem is that the writing does not account for wyll being a companion, rather than an avatar. if he is your avatar, the reveal feels more impactful, because the narrative has followed wyll as the central figure of the game, rather than a customised character. thus, revealing the mysterious guardian figure as a hero of legend makes perfect sense, in the context of wyll's fairy tale themed quest. however, if wyll is not your avatar, the reveal falls flat. this is because he is no longer in the spotlight, and the game does nothing to account for that, which makes the entire quest feel like it is more about balduran than it is wyll. and this is done despite the fact that without wyll, there isn't even any point, narratively speaking, to having the emperor secretly be balduran. the emperor's function in the story is relevant specifically to wyll, and as I've explained, ansur and balduran's story is incredibly important to the resolution of wyll's own story. what needed to happen was sufficient material being added to the quest to ensure that wyll is still treated as the point of focus. not only that, but there should be material added at earlier points of the game, so as to strengthen the connection between wyll and the emperor, because prior to the wyrmway, the emperor only singles out whoever you're playing as, and there's nothing to account for that not being wyll. this lack of early game connection only serves to further weaken the impact this conclusion has. how would I improve wyll's story, to account for when he is a companion, so that he is treated as the focal point of the conclusion to his quest, and so that he is given a satisfying resolution to his story?

give wyll dialogue with and about the emperor that is exclusive to him, to draw a connection between them earlier on in the game. if gale can have an interaction with mystra that excludes your character entirely, as shadowheart does with dame aylin, then there's absolutely no reason why wyll cannot have an exclusive scene with the emperor.

rework the scene in which mizora gives wyll the ultimatum. while wyll is given agency to choose his own fate at the wyrmway, I feel that he should be given agency at this point as well. once again, there's no reason for why this can't be possible, as shadowheart is given the option to choose for herself both in act 2 and 3. then, by having the emperor pay special attention to wyll, the possibility for him to choose to save himself would become more realistic, as the emperor would have an understandable reason for trying to convince wyll to choose himself over his father. moreover, the emperor would possess the means to believably convince wyll to choose himself, because the emperor knows gortash personally and thus knows that gortash wouldn't just immediately dispose of someone as useful as ulder, which is something he could tell wyll. to account for the relationship between your player character and wyll, if wyll is told to choose for himself whether he should accept mizora's new pact, his choice to believe the emperor's claims could be determined by his approval of your avatar. if you've treated him well and reaffirmed his worth as a person, wyll could realise that the emperor has no reason to lie, and that alongside you, saving his father from gortash should be possible regardless of what mizora has promised. meaning: he would choose to break his pact. if you've treated him poorly, he could argue that he hates mizora, but he at least he knows he can rely on her power and lawful nature, whereas he has no reason to trust that you would actually help him save his father from both gortash and mizora, if he is indeed still alive. meaning: he accepts mizora's new terms.

introduce the possibility of multiple final outcomes for wyll's story a little earlier on in the game. if I'm not mistaken, it is only when you get to the wyrmway itself, and have defeated ansur, that the possibility of wyll even becoming duke is mentioned. I feel that the "blade of avernus," is an ending best left to be announced by wyll himself, after ansur's demise, but wyll becoming the new duke should be hinted at shortly after he's been given the ultimatum by mizora. how it is mentioned, and how likely wyll would be to follow that path, would obviously be dependant on whether he accepted mizora's ultimatum, but could also consider other factors, such as if ulder is alive.

if wyll is in your party, it should not be possible for the cutscene with ansur to be triggered by anyone else but wyll. if other companions act immediately in dialogue with npcs important to their quests (i.e. shadowheart attackign dame aylin, astarion attacking his siblings & cazador) if they are in your party, wyll should be given that same grace. he is given some, in act 2..... should you fail the perception check that allows you to negotiate wyll's original contract with mizora.....but I think anyone with any measure of intelligence can agree that that should not be locked between a random, unexplained dice roll which you have no control over.

going off the last point, the emperor's dialogue following ansur's final demise should perhaps be delivered in a short cutscene format. the dialogue with wyll, where he laments that ansur will not save them, and questions if this means baldur's gate will fall, can play out normally. but when the emperor tells wyll that he is the heart of the gate, there should be a moment in which the emperor shows wyll (and you as the player) visions of wyll surrounded by baldurians cheering after you've all defeated the brain. it could be a short scene, just a momentary vision, but it would clarify that the emperor is speaking directly to wyll. the vision paired with the emperor's words then makes wyll's following confidence feel a little less spontaneous, and gives his consideration of taking up ulder's ducal title a little more foundation.

after the emperor's identity is revealed, at some point after leaving the wyrmway, give the emperor a dialogue that explains that he was urged to protect wyll, in a way, because he related to wyll's experiences. it'd be important to ensure the emperor still sounds selfish, because he is, but to suggest that he feels some degree of connection to wyll. that way the writing would remain faithful to the emperor's character, but would also emphasise the connection between wyll and balduran (both heroes) as victims of those with inflexible lawful good morality (ulder and ansur/the moral), and those who exploit vulnerable people (mizora exploiting a young, selfless wyll by offering him the chance to save his city & gortash exploiting that balduran is a mindflayer and thus a monster in the eyes of society/ both villains). and for the "mindflayers don't have any feelings crowd" : experiencing such fondness for a person is not completely unrealistic for an illithid, as omeluum expresses feeling "warmth" towards your character if you save him from the submersible. the emperor is selfish, yes, but writing him with some degree of sympathy for a character that is paralleled to him in their quest makes him more interesting of a character, in my opinion.

add a post quest cutscene. shadowheart is given a cutscene after her quest is completed, regardless of whether your character has romanced her. the cutscene works well to show the player the complicated emotional state she is in, and allows her to express some of the anguish she's kept inside for so long. I believe this kind of cutscene would be perfect to fully conclude wyll’s quest, as he keeps a lot of his feelings to himself and deserves an opportunity to express them. if ulder is alive, the cutscene could feature the moment in which he echoes balduran's words and reaffirms that wyll never needed ansur to save the city. then, the scene can shift to your character helping wyll to prepare the dinner he mentioned wanting to make. in this scene, you can ask him about his feelings about everything that's happened. if ulder is not alive (something I've never personally had happen), the post quest cutscene could feature a moment in which the emperor reaffirms wyll as the true heart of the gate instead, and then transition to the dinner preparation. of course, wyll's responses would obviously be different depending on his approval of your character, whether he remains pacted to mizora, and whether his father is alive. either way, adding this cutscene would offer an opportunity for wyll to comment on how he personally feels about the conclusion to his quest. and by using cooking, which wyll seemed very excited about doing, there is the chance to include some dialogue about his time adventuring the sword coast.

those are just some of my ideas to make the wyrmway quest, in specific, stronger as an ending. if there are inconsistencies, I apologise, but his quest remains bugged, and I'm not entirely sure of the correct order certain dialogues are supposed to play out following ansur's death. I did my best to figure it out and you are welcome to correct any innaccuracies.

beyond the wyrmway, there is of course, much else that wyll deserves to have added to his companion quest & romance (some of which I briefly brushed upon). if you've read through all this, thank you for caring enough about wyll to do so, and I'd love to hear anything you might have to say about wyll's quest, wyrmway or otherwise. perhaps you may have better improvements in mind than I do!

please just keep comments respectful and focused on wyll. I will just block people who derail this post to speak about other companions for any purpose other than calling to attention the disparities between their quest material & wyll's.

also, if you're interested, here is the original post in which I talked about the wyrmway quest.

[a-h-arts]

Love it! You know, maybe some things happen for a reason, even if we don't know what that reason is. Go to Amazon

Wonderful plates, wonderful price An excellent monograph on Bosch's most important, endlessly fascinating, painting. You can accept the distinguished author's interpretations or not but the plates are what counts. The size of the central panel is 6" wide by 7" high and the side panels 3" x 7" - too small to gain more than a sense of the work but the marvelous details, which I take to be actual size, are very clear with both the craquelure and pentimenti visible. The screen is so fine magnification is required to see it. In a way the illlustrations are better than being in Madrid: no one standing in front, nor extraneous noise, nor guard to shoo you back. My only wish is the format were larger, but then the cost would be so much greater. The current after market price of $1.55 represents an incredible bargain. Go to Amazon

A Garden of Speculation The work is quite well illustrated and is divided into two parts. Go to Amazon

very detailed new images ...The plates in this book show fantastic detail. Every crack in the paint is visible in many of the closeups. These are new pictures taken after the painting, was cleaned & restored. Go to Amazon

Five Stars What a fabulous book, in depth examination of Bosh's fascinating paintings! Outstandingly quick delivery too. ***** Go to Amazon

Great book Great book about a great painting Go to Amazon

Good value Thorough discussion of an underappreciated artist. Go to Amazon

great info. poor binding The binding to this book is already falling apart after one reading. Why don't publishing company spend more money on making books last a lifetime? As a booklover, I do not want to buy any newly published works since the quality of paper and binding is poor. Go to Amazon

Good interpretation of H. Bosch by Belting. Three Stars Hieronymous Bosch

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: The High Drama of Hot Color in a Field of Black

Jason Karolak, “Untitled (P-1626)” (2016), oil on linen over panel, 14 x 12 inches (all images courtesy the artist and McKenzie Fine Art, New York)

Jason Karolak’s current show at McKenzie Fine Art, which comes with the title Prospects, is a follow-up to one that I reviewed in 2015, and it demonstrates a progressive sense of refinement and focus.

Despite his continued use of black grounds and electric color, there has been a sweeping change in Karolak’s painting since the first time I encountered it at his Greenpoint studio, which I visited in preparation for a catalogue essay I was writing for a two-person show (with Antoine Lefebvre, curated by Matthew Neil Gehring) at the Flecker Gallery in Selden, New York.

Compared to what he is doing now, the work I saw at that time could be reasonably characterized as a hot, holy mess. After covering his enormous canvases with multiple applications of primer, he would paint the entire surface red, which he would then conceal, imperfectly, with coats of black. The red frequently showed through; spots were missed and the skin of the black paint would assume a reddish hue.

Upon this roiling black ground, Karolak would paint scores of lines in luminous shades of blue, green, yellow, and violet that would take the shape of awkward cubes, stacked and layered, one over another over another. The resulting work resembled a linear version of action painting, with runny paint, mottled surfaces, and pentimenti galore.

Jason Karolak, “Untitled (P-1642)” (2016), oil on linen over panel, 15 x 13 inches

These paintings evinced a big talent barreling through the romance of a new formal discovery, a crazy dance over uncharted terrain. If his later work feels more self-confident and controlled, it’s the natural evolution of an approach that would have become disingenuous and frankly dull if he had persisted in the pursuit of wild improvisation — as if he didn’t know what he was in for, when sooner or later he would know, and would have to deal with that eventuality.

And so, as the canvases in his previous show suggested, his painting temperature cooled and he became less involved with taming chaos and more engaged with developing a personal sense of architectonics, with the black ground as the most conspicuous holdover from his previous way of working.

And since Karolak’s use of black has become one of the few constants in his painting, its ubiquity presents a critical challenge, expressly because it looks so good, which is a somewhat perverse reason to cast suspicion on a body of work.

The fluorescent colors he uses invariably glow with a special luminosity when laid against black. Such extreme graphic contrasts are stark and exciting; they grab your attention like flashing LEDs in a dark-as-midnight casino. Some might argue that the black ground has become a habit aided and abetted by the heady visual buzz it generates, but this would be a hasty and superficial reading of the artist’s canniness and mastery.

Set his use of black against the formal delimitations practiced by dozens of postwar artists (commencing with Ad Reinhardt and Mark Rothko), and the black ground can be understood as a springboard for formal invention, equally matched by possibilities and pitfalls.

Caravaggio painted his entire surface a deep umber and worked lighter passages into it, wet on wet, in order to create his astonishing interplay of light and shadow. Although there are Caravaggios that use a light to medium ground, such as the incomparable “Basket of Fruit” (c.1599) in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, it is impossible to imagine the high drama of the equally incomparable “Denial of Saint Peter” (1610) at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art without the darkness that surrounds it.

Jason Karolak, “Untitled (P-1713)” (2017), oil on linen over panel, 16 x 14 inches

The minimal contextual information that Caravaggio provides in his great religious compositions shifts the focus of the painting’s intent. He is not so much telling the story of Peter’s disavowal of Jesus, in fear of the Roman authorities closing in, as he is presenting the idea of betrayal and remorse (Peter seems to be simultaneously lying and weeping), just as his airborne “Inspiration of Saint Matthew” (1602) in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome embodies the idea of inspiration.

Not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but the formal interactions that Karolak has been exploring up to and including this current show feel like a distinct and cogent contribution to the current conversation.

His radiant imagery may evoke the electronic circuitry that makes contemporary life hum, and in that regard, the high contrast of fluorescence against matte black serves an extravisual purpose. But such associations lie in the deep background of perception.

What is more to the point is the force with which the black ground isolates and foregrounds the lines and shapes, even those articulated by less intense colors, to such an extent that they read not as compositional conventions but as an idea of line and shape — abstract ideals floating in Platonic space. It’s precisely this sense of isolation and idealization, and the endless possibilities packed inside, that more than justifies Karolak’s unvarying use of black, defining it as a premise rather than an effect.

Jason Karolak, “Untitled (P-1706)” (2017), oil on linen over panel, 15 x 13 inches

The new paintings are the most varied so far in terms of imagery, with a greater emphasis on muted color and spatial ambiguity. (All the larger pieces are oil on linen, while the smaller ones are oil on linen over panel.) There is one, “Untitled (P-1706)” (2017), that consists solely of six vertically paired, triangularly arranged colored circles — light blue above and dusky green below — so that the lower ones shine with the dark reflections of a nighttime lake. In another, “Untitled (P-1713)” (2017), short lines in three colors (light mint-green, dark blue, and bright purple) zigzag up the right side of the canvas as if climbing a mountainside. And in yet another, “Untitled (P-1626)” (2016), orange-yellow and yellow-green lines form curving and rounded shapes that enclose a purplish-gray interior.

This interior shape is one of several that act as slightly lighter-toned playing fields for Karolak’s zinging shots of color, arenas of experimentation whose brightly pigmented linear borders seem to simultaneously defend against and nestle within the composition’s enveloping fields of black.

Look carefully at the chocolatey gray he has laid beneath the pipeworks of green, blue, and black angled lines in “Untitled (P-1642)” (2016), or the warm, rusty violet-gray he encloses within the odd, peaked-roofed-house-like structure in “Untitled (P-1661)” (2016), and you’ll notice that the grays are painted in succeeding coats of light over dark, with the latter edging the boundary of the lines like a halo or stain, juicing the color and ramping up the solidity of the stroke.

All this is to say that Karolak has opened up his pictorial imagination to a diverse range of interactions and approaches, such as painting the gessoed linen surface with an undercoat of violet (“Untitled (P-1709),” 2017), which is then covered entirely in black with the exception of about three dozen dots, where the initial color peeks through with a special luminosity.

All of the paintings discussed so far are smaller in format, from 13 to 16 inches in height and 13 to 15 inches in width. These works tend to be spatially compact and rhythmically intense, while the larger canvases (two at 66 by 58, one at 69 by 61, and another at 46 by 40) feel more open and amorphous, less spatially beholden to the four edges of the canvas. The most striking is “Untitled (P-1714)” (2017), with its vertical, zigzagging orange dashes coupled with a diagonal set of straight and looping purple lines that thrust the orange strokes forward in space, while a barely discernible gray field hovers like a geometric shadow behind the purple diagonals .

Jason Karolak, “Untitled (P-1714)” (2017), oil on linen, 66 x 58 inches

The smallest of the four large paintings, “Untitled (P-1665)” (2016), offers a house-like image similar to the one in “Untitled (P-1661),” mentioned above, this time decked out in emerald-green and yellow-green lines, but in a much more sober arrangement of shapes, as if the larger size had invited artist’s innately classical sensibility in through a back door. The other two large canvases fuse together a congregation of irregularly drawn shapes, with a hint of figuration, though they steer clear of semi-abstraction.

The irony, of course, is that after having gone to such lengths to understand why Karolak’s black grounds feel so right, he may turn around and spread one of his warm gray fields across the entire picture plane, or just as easily decide that his ground should now be sea green, or cobalt blue, or hot pink. It goes without saying that an artist of Karolak’s caliber could change on a dime and have very good reasons for doing so.

This is not idle speculation, given that his smaller works of a few years ago were based on sets of multicolored grids, coming off as a separate body of work from his large black paintings. But it’s an easy bet that whatever direction he takes, for whatever reason, will be captivating to think about and look really good.

Jason Karolak: Prospects continues at McKenzie Fine Art (55 Orchard Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan) through October 8.

The post The High Drama of Hot Color in a Field of Black appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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[instituteofculturalinquiry--blog]

Installing Sande Sisneros' show, Speculative Pentimenti: painting in an age of endarkenment.

A project presented within the framework of the ICI's 2012 Research Theme of Phantom Worlds, Featuring the work of Sande Sisneros. Curated by Sue-Na Gay.

Opening Reception: May 5, 2012 7-9 PM

May 5-26 2012

Show will be on view Thursday-Saturday, 12-5 PM by appointment only

www.culturalinquiry.org

[a-h-arts]

Five Stars What a fabulous book, in depth examination of Bosh's fascinating paintings! Outstandingly quick delivery too. ***** Go to Amazon

Five Stars very good Go to Amazon

Great book Great book about a great painting Go to Amazon

Good value Thorough discussion of an underappreciated artist. Go to Amazon

great info. poor binding The binding to this book is already falling apart after one reading. Why don't publishing company spend more money on making books last a lifetime? As a booklover, I do not want to buy any newly published works since the quality of paper and binding is poor. Go to Amazon

Three Stars very strange but it did explain about why it was mentioned in a book. Go to Amazon

Love it! You know, maybe some things happen for a reason, even if we don't know what that reason is. Go to Amazon

Wonderful plates, wonderful price An excellent monograph on Bosch's most important, endlessly fascinating, painting. You can accept the distinguished author's interpretations or not but the plates are what counts. The size of the central panel is 6" wide by 7" high and the side panels 3" x 7" - too small to gain more than a sense of the work but the marvelous details, which I take to be actual size, are very clear with both the craquelure and pentimenti visible. The screen is so fine magnification is required to see it. In a way the illlustrations are better than being in Madrid: no one standing in front, nor extraneous noise, nor guard to shoo you back. My only wish is the format were larger, but then the cost would be so much greater. The current after market price of $1.55 represents an incredible bargain. Go to Amazon

Good interpretation of H. Bosch by Belting. A Garden of Speculation very detailed new images Hieronymous Bosch