#Topics in Abstract Painting W19 03 The Painting as an Object

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Roy Lichtenstein (American 1923-1997). Red and White Brushstrokes 1965. Oil and Magna on canvas, 48 x 68 inches. Source.

Jean-Léon Gérôme (French 1824-1904). The Carpet Merchant c. 1887. Oil on canvas, 33 7/8 x 41 3/4 inches. Minneapolis Museum of Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Lichtenstein’s humorous appropriation of the Abstract Expressionist brush mark provides an entry point to the complexities of trying to determine an artist’s intent when it comes to reading the materiality of an artwork versus its illusionistic qualities. Lichtenstein’s “expressive” mark is rendered flatly, composed of many small, flat, carefully applied actual marks.

Meanwhile, the Gérôme is an astounding piece of illusionism. I recall seeing it on a visit to Minneapolis years ago; it really does appear to be a window into an illuminated space, another little world behind the wall upon which it hangs. 

The critic Clement Greenberg is one writer who identified the course of modern painting as being directed towards increasing shallowness, if not outright flatness. Artists since the Impressionists have embraced the materiality of their paint, announcing the status of their paintings as crafted objects rather than illusionistic windows. The work I selected for this slideshow is intended to demonstrate that tendency, but also to show that illusionism can sometimes appear in places where it is not expected.

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Jackson Pollock (American 1912-1956). Sea Change 1947. Artist and commercial oil paint, with gravel, on canvas; 57 7/8 x 44 1/8 inches. Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington. Source.

Grace Hartigan (American. 1922-2008). Shinnecock Canal 1957. Oil on canvas, 7/6 1/2” x 6’4”. Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Pollock’s drip paintings can sometimes appear to be a dense mesh, penetrable by the eye, especially the largest ones. Sea Change, which belongs to the Seattle Art Museum, contains metallic paint that seems to flatten it, and the addition of gravel in places extends the impression of flat materiality. The Hartigan is different: the brush marks announce themselves as brushmarks, the paint looks like paint, but there are references to landscape, and the individual marks are organized in such a way as to suggest overlapping forms. Pollock adheres to the “allover” compositional style, while Hartigan places hierarchical areas of emphasis within her composition.

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Howard Hodgkin (British 1932-2017). Snow Cloud seems to be uncompromisingly flat, paint on plywood and frame. However, in Rain he places his brush marks within a sort of painted proscenium arch, and he creates a clear spatial progression, moving deeper towards the left hand side. Hodgkin didn’t get Greenberg’s memo on flatness, and clearly devotes a great deal of thoughtful energy towards exploring illusion in paint.

Snow Cloud 2009-2010. Oil on wood, 17 x 22 1/4 inches. Source.

Rain 1984-89. Oil paint on composite panel, 64 1/2 x 70 1/2 inches. Tate Gallery, London.

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Joan Snyder (American b. 1940). I believe we start to train ourselves to find depth in pictures as soon as we learn to read them in printed books and on screens. I find it difficult not to see space behind the vertical drips here. However, it is clear to me that Snyder revels in the materiality of her paint. Like Pollock, she incorporates objects and dimensional materials into her work. The painting projects outwards, towards the viewer, rather than drawing the viewer into it.

Pumpkin Fields/Magenta Flowers 2012. Oil, acrylic, paper cache, burlap, and straw on linen; 48 x 48 inches. Source.

A Perfect Fall 2013. Oil, acrylic, and twigs on linen; triptych: 36 x 106 inches.

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Marian Breedveld (Dutch b. 1959). Breedveld is an artist I’ve learned about only recently, and, unfortunately, many of these images were taken down in the time between when I saved them and when I put this slideshow together. As a result, I haven’t been able to provide titles, sizes, and other details. What should be clear from these pictures, though, is the way she devotes her attention to specific material qualities of paint and pigment, including its ability to describe smooth, blended, atmospheric transitions, while always calling our attention to illusion-destroying surface texture and edges.

Untitled. Oil on canvas, date and size unknown. Source.

Unknown painting, recto and verso.

Unknown painting, with detail.

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Dorothea Rockburne (American, born Canada 1938). There are many artists of the 1960s and 1970s whose honesty towards materials and process makes them appear to be object-makers and not creators of illusion. Geometrist Rockburne uses folded papers and shaped canvases towards that end.

Arena III 1978. Vellum, colored pencil, varnish, rag board; 54 5/8 x 47 inches. Source.

Drawing Which Makes Itself: Neighborhood 1973. Transparentized paper (vellum?), pencil, colored pencil, and felt-tip pen on wall; 107 x 150 inches. Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Golden Section Painting: Square Separated by Parallelogram August 1974. Gesso and pencil on sized, glued, and folded linen; 64 3/8 x 104 1/2 inches. Museum of Modern Art, New York.

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Frank Stella (American b. 1936). Speaking of his early pinstripe paintings, top, Stella famously said, “What you see is what you see.” He chose metallic paint for its visually repellant qualities, in an effort to reinforce the absolute flatness of his support. Shaped canvases further his cause. Later in his career he found novel ways to explore spatial illusion, creating hybrid relief paintings and, ultimately, sculpture. A series of lectures he gave in the late 1980s, published as Working Space, contains a fascinating account of his move towards three dimensions and his embrace of certain kinds of illusionism.

Telluride 1962. Copper oil paint on canvas, 22 1/2 x 27 inches. Source.

Gobba, zoppa e collotorto 1985. Oil, urethane enamel, fluorescent alkyd, acrylic, and printing ink on etched magnesium and aluminum; 137 x 120 1/8 x 34 3/8 inches. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. Source.

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Gerhard Richter (German b. 1932). At top, a rhombus by Richter. Whether it is illusionistic or not, painting is dependent on architecture; the rhombus shape relates to the wall, floor, and ceiling in a way that is very different from a rectangle. At bottom, an early drawing by Richter shows his preoccupation with paintings as they relate to interior spaces. He envisions a group of imaginary paintings in different gallery spaces.

Abstract Painting, Rhombus 1998. Oil on canvas, 90 1/4 x 101 inches. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas. Source.

Rooms (Atlas Sheet: 221) 1970. Collage and graphite on paper, 20 1/4 x 14 1/2 inches. Source.

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Angela de la Cruz (Spanish b. 1969). Ready to Wear 1999. Oil on canvas over wood strainer, size unknown. Source.

A humorous statement on the materiality of a painting, a theme that this artist has continued to explore throughout her career as a painter/sculptor.

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Loredana Sperini (Swiss b. 1970). I thought I’d give Sperini the last word, for her uncompromisingly materialistic combinations of wax and concrete, neither painting nor sculpture but containing elements of both. The delicate wax on the rough, heavy concrete reminds me of the residual pigments on ancient Greek marbles, which were once in realistic colors.

Untitled 2017. Wax, cement, pigments; 11 3/4 x 8 1/4 x 1 3/4 inches. Source.

Untitled 2015. Wax, cement, pigments; 11 3/4 x 8 1/4 x 1 3/4 inches. Source.