Yellow, Barnett Newman

Yesterday I made a second visit to the Barnett Newman exhibit at the National Gallery.  Other than the guard, I had the tower to myself.   Lonely silence and an unhindered hour allowed me to see the works in a very different way than my first quick and crowded encounter.

Many of the pieces are mostly raw canvas.  Especially given the title - Stations of the Cross - I immediately perceive allegory in how the stark abstract lines interact with this rawness.  But that's my problem, almost certainly not the artist's intent.

Newman started the series in his fifties after an especially unsuccessful commercial exhibition.  Known as a colorist, these nominally monochromatic works were a major departure... which many critics then and now consider his crowning achievement.

In June 1890 Gauguin writes to a friend, "... I myself know that my painting at this point is incomplete, more of a preparation for something similar.  In art, these sacrifices have to be made, stage-by-stage - groping efforts, half formed thoughts lacking direct and and definitive expression."

Ferme au Pouldu, Paul Gauguin (1890)