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Onement, I (1948)

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Barnett Newman (1905-1970)

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one of the major American artists in abstract expressionism

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one of the foremost of the color field painters

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born in New York City, the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland

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studied philosophy at the City College of New York and worked in his father's business manufacturing clothing

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he considered it his mature work

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a breakthrough work aesthetically and in terms of his studio practice

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his first fully developed concept of the zip

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the characteristic graphic device of Newman

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down the center of the painting

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alternatively dividing and uniting the space of the canvas

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underneath the cadmium red light band of paint, you will see a piece of masking tape

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used Alizarin paint

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he probably intended to rip this tape off

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he was probably intending a white zip down the middle

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this could be the very beginning of some methodical painting process that Newman was beginning

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the band affirms the two-dimension location of the support

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emphasized the figure/ground relationship of something in front of something else

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although quite flat, something opaque versus a very translucent ground that you can read into see a certain amount of depth

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Newman simply left the tape there and applied a cadmium red paint over the masking tape with a palette knife

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therefore it has a buttery thin texture

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lifts of paint which are characteristic of squeezing the palette knife down onto the surface of the painting

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the paint will squirt out around the edges of the knife

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we know its cadmium red

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hue of color

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opacity

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cadmium being a heavy metal, you can think of it like lead, and so opaque

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you either see the orange or your don't, characteristic of opaque pigments

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it's not translucent like the Alizarin in the background

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color choices

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Hans Hofmann (1880-1966)

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German-born American abstract expressionist painter

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Hofmann's ideas of push and pull

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the temperature of a color

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it's ability to push out into your space optically or pull away from you

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warm colors

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associate with daylight

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reds, yellows, the oranges

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push into your space

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they hit you in the eye first

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cooler colors

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associate with nighttime

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blues, purples, even burgundies or maroons

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are reticent

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they're quieter in our eye, pulling back away from us

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by contrasting that push and pull effect, Newman is reinforcing the figure/ground effect

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the zip is hitting us in the eye first

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the cooler colored background is moving away from us and is underneath the zip

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it is also a translucent, a weaker color than the zip