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Course: Modernisms 1900-1980 > Unit 9
Lesson 2: New York School- The Impact of Abstract Expressionism
- Sari Dienes, Star Circle
- Jasper Johns, Flag
- Johns, White Flag
- Robert Rauschenberg, Erased de Kooning Drawing
- Robert Rauschenberg, Canyon
- Robert Rauschenberg, Bed
- Robert Rauschenberg, Signs
- Ed Kienholz and Nancy Reddin Kienholz Useful Art #5: The Western Hotel, 1992
- Ad Reinhardt, Abstract Painting
- Ad Reinhardt
- The Painting Techniques of Ad Reinhardt
- Helen Frankenthaler, Mountains and Sea
- Helen Frankenthaler, The Bay
- Frankenthaler's The Bay
- Frank Stella, The Marriage of Reason and Squalor
- “Protractor, Variation I” by Frank Stella
- New York School (quiz)
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The Painting Techniques of Ad Reinhardt
Take time with Ad Reinhardt's black canvases and discover the rewards of contemplation. To learn more and create your own works, take our online course Materials and Techniques of Postwar Abstract Painting. Created by The Museum of Modern Art.
Want to join the conversation?
- It may be that I don't have the sophistication to appreciate the big black square, but if anyone can explain this any better I'd appreciate it. It may also be partial color blindness. I can't really see anything but just black. Does anyone else see a range of colors, and if so do you really get all that the narrator was sayin' from that image?(16 votes)
- Hello. Actually, if you get fairly close to these paintings in a gallery, you can see a lot of the underlying colors. It might take awhile to see them, but eventually they will manifest.(14 votes)
- If Reinhardt didn't want to be clumped in with abstract expressionists, why was he?(4 votes)
- Well, remember that it was not his fault, nor his desire for that to happen. For the sake of simplicity, art is often grouped together into large periods or genres, and thus, because Reinhardt's style was abstract, art history categorized him as a Abstract Expressionist, and he has stayed under that general genre since then. It is merely an answer of historical categorization, not really a conscious act on any particular person's part. Does that make sense?(3 votes)
- ~1:15- "purify art" - What was Reinhardt's view of "purified" art?(3 votes)
- ~1:50- Why would Reinhardt cringe at the idea of being associated with others of his genre?(2 votes)
- He never used his genre's "techniques", and didn't actually like his genre. For some reason, though, he was associated with it.(3 votes)
- ~3:20- acquiring the "sludge of paint" - Would it not be possible to acquire this in a more expeditious manner? Could it be manufactured this way?(2 votes)
- doubtless it could be manufactured this way, but would there be a market for it? And, if there were such a product (pigment without oil, for example), how would one mix it without first thinning and then letting it settle? I think that just as Reinhardt's paintings require patience on the part of viewers, they required patience on his part, as artist, to get made.(1 vote)
- After seeing these series of abstract expressionist and how the techniques on how they are made, I truly appreciate this artistic movement more and more. I wonder if any of these artist had any formal training? How they progressed from a simple figure drawing class to what they are well known for today. Does anyone know if there are any images of any these artist pre-abstract expressionism?(1 vote)
- who is this person/narrator??/(0 votes)
- He is Corey D'augustine, from Soethbys
http://www.sothebysinstitute.com/why-sothebys/our-faculty/core-d-augustine/(1 vote)
Video transcript
(lighthearted music) Voiceover: You're looking at one
of Ed Reinhardt's black paintings but actually there is no
black on this painting. What may first appear as an all over
black square, actually is a grid. A three by three grid
of well, nine squares and each square contains
an intensely deep shade of either red, green or blue. One could call this chromatic
blacks or colored blacks because at the four
corners of the painting, we see actually a deep shade of red. Across the center of the painting
we see a very deep green. In midway, along the top and bottom
edges we find a very deep blue. Now if you don't see this at
first, there's a reason for it because even in front of
the painting in the gallery perceiving this painting is a
function of the rods and cones adjusting in your eye. It's actually the same experience you have when waking up in the middle of the night. When at first everything
is black and then gradually as your rods and cones adjusts,
color forms slowly, gradually emerge. Perceiving this composition takes time, it takes patience and it takes attention. Ad Reinhardt was actually very, very
interested in exactly those qualities for he's not to purify art
and the experience of it. Reinhardt wanted to keep art
and business totally separate. He relished the fact that these
paintings are almost impossible to reproduce in photography. Reinhardt was in the abstract
expressionist circle. However the paint qualities that
you associate with that movement are totally lacking in Reinhardt,
and there's a reason for that. Reinhardt was an oppositional figure. If he knew that he were lumped in
with the abstract expressionists, he would cringe at the thought. (lighthearted music) Ad Reinhardt's painting process
was a very individualistic one, a very unique one and he never
made a mystery of his technique like so many other New
York school painters did. Corey: The first step in preparing
this exquisite matte quality paint is actually involving these jars here. Interestingly his materials, despite the fact that his
paintings look so odd and unique, his materials are straight up classical. Nothing more than oil paint
out of the tube and turpentine, the typical solvent for all oil painting. What he would typically do is to
use quite a bit of mars black paint. To that entire quantity he
would add just a little bit of one of the three colors he
painted with: red, green and blue. Next a generous dose of turpentine. What I'm doing now is making sure
that that oil paint is dissolving into that turpentine
very, very thoroughly. Reinhardt would then leave this jars on
his shelves in his studio for a week, for two weeks, for perhaps a month. The reason for that waiting period
is that the dense part of the paint, in other words the pigment,
would settle to the bottom. Meanwhile the light part of that
mixture would rise to the top. What is the light part? Well it's the turpentine
that he just added. Now the oil, the binder
from that tube of paint now extracted from that pigment,
lifted up to the top of this jar. What he would do next is
this, he would open the jar and then pour off all of that
solvent phase if you will or all that light part
of the paint mixture. Leaving behind only that sludge of paint. (lighthearted music) Voiceover: Because Reinhardt has
withdrawn so much medium from his paint, the resulting paint surfaces are
almost free of any trace of brush work. In addition, they are the most matte
paint surfaces you will probably ever see. Because there's no gloss, because
there's no reflection on that surface there's no other light
hitting us in the eye. In other words, we have the
opportunity to perceive color directly. Reinhardt was by far in a way the most subtle colorist of the
abstract expressionist painters. His use of color was so subtle, in fact, that it's on the
very threshold of perception. To see these painting we quite
literally have to slow down the pace of every day life. His paintings demand our
patience and close looking. (lighthearted music)