Good to see a post on Reinhardt. Being particular and discriminating can often be mistaken for curmudgeonhood, especially if you tend to be as combative as AR was. But maybe some people get the message. Here's an anecdote. Some years ago you will recall the Whitney displayed several of the black paintings (Why are painters obsessed with last paintings while photographers are obsessed with first photographs -- and first cameras?) in the small room on the first floor. To most of us they looked pretty much the same at first glance. A heavily coated and scarved man stalked through the gallery , examined the paintings minutely and then announced to everyone in the room: "You see that painting over there? I wouldn't give you two cents for that painting. But this one here, this one is genius!"
Thank you for this glimpse into the work and life of Ad Reinhardt, another name that I was familiar with, although without any other knowledge. Another name that I am also familiar with, and with more knowledge of his life and work, is Malevich, who also painted Black Squares albeit slightly earlier than Reinhardt. I’m guessing that Reinhardt would have known of Malevich and his work, was he an influence in any way? Did Reinhardt refer to Malevich’s work in any of his writings or lectures?
If his Black Square paintings were, as you say, “the last paintings”, was this in the sense that Reinhardt effectively gave up painting at that point, or that others should look on them as the end of the development of painting, a square full stop as it were to Barr’s development theory of art?
Is this how he and Malevich differed? I have always regarded the Black Square that Malevich painted in 1915 as his personal culmination of the variety of styles: Impressionism, Symbolism, Fauvism and Cubism that he had painted through up to that point, as if he had painted them all onto the same canvas one on top of the other until the picture became black with the mix of colours. And then, having done with all that, he was liberated to move on with his Suprematist canvasses, to start again.
" no necessary connection between ...Reinhardt’s writing and the art he made ..." HUUUM.?
To expand the discussion, I suggest that his writings prepared us to experience an extreme type of 'Absolute', akin to the Zen NO-MIND, or "unknowing" of the Romantics and Mystics. He wanted to paint it.
The Muslim Sufi sect, to whom the poet Rumi belonged, were part of a long line back to the Essenes-- living in caves, wrapped in cloaks, with a diet of water and rice. They say and maintain that there are 100 names of ALLAH -GOD. Very few know the 99 names and no one knows # 100. Just keep searching, keep peering into that blackness, you might see the total nothing. Maybe not. 100 ZERO.
The Reinhardt Black Paintings do seem to keep us peering into the blackness, no knowing no concluding no saying no silence not at all. He painted them to do it. They succeed beautifully.
This is a lonely job for even the devoted. We all love human joys and experiences, most especially sharing our experiences about what we see and how we feel. Human happiness is so lovely.
By calling that type of Absolute extreme, I share the approach of my studio as so much more humane. We want viewers to be confounded and quisical, to look at it this way and that, share their thoughts, expand the meanings and make comparisons to physical joy, wild thunder, old lovers, rivulets, dawns, 'Teresa in Ecstasy', by Bernini. We want to encourage variable open interpretations. This is the sweet kindness of art, of sharing and exchanging, convivial and kind, appreciation of our opinions, like going to the wall to pray together or sitting beside each other, rather than a lonely cold cave ( I have been there myself and swear by the messiness of our commonplace world, with occasional fasts or Lent). A work of Art becomes a social contract, collective culture.
The mystery of mystical number name 100 might be : ______________.
Good to see a post on Reinhardt. Being particular and discriminating can often be mistaken for curmudgeonhood, especially if you tend to be as combative as AR was. But maybe some people get the message. Here's an anecdote. Some years ago you will recall the Whitney displayed several of the black paintings (Why are painters obsessed with last paintings while photographers are obsessed with first photographs -- and first cameras?) in the small room on the first floor. To most of us they looked pretty much the same at first glance. A heavily coated and scarved man stalked through the gallery , examined the paintings minutely and then announced to everyone in the room: "You see that painting over there? I wouldn't give you two cents for that painting. But this one here, this one is genius!"
Thank you for this glimpse into the work and life of Ad Reinhardt, another name that I was familiar with, although without any other knowledge. Another name that I am also familiar with, and with more knowledge of his life and work, is Malevich, who also painted Black Squares albeit slightly earlier than Reinhardt. I’m guessing that Reinhardt would have known of Malevich and his work, was he an influence in any way? Did Reinhardt refer to Malevich’s work in any of his writings or lectures?
If his Black Square paintings were, as you say, “the last paintings”, was this in the sense that Reinhardt effectively gave up painting at that point, or that others should look on them as the end of the development of painting, a square full stop as it were to Barr’s development theory of art?
Is this how he and Malevich differed? I have always regarded the Black Square that Malevich painted in 1915 as his personal culmination of the variety of styles: Impressionism, Symbolism, Fauvism and Cubism that he had painted through up to that point, as if he had painted them all onto the same canvas one on top of the other until the picture became black with the mix of colours. And then, having done with all that, he was liberated to move on with his Suprematist canvasses, to start again.
" no necessary connection between ...Reinhardt’s writing and the art he made ..." HUUUM.?
To expand the discussion, I suggest that his writings prepared us to experience an extreme type of 'Absolute', akin to the Zen NO-MIND, or "unknowing" of the Romantics and Mystics. He wanted to paint it.
The Muslim Sufi sect, to whom the poet Rumi belonged, were part of a long line back to the Essenes-- living in caves, wrapped in cloaks, with a diet of water and rice. They say and maintain that there are 100 names of ALLAH -GOD. Very few know the 99 names and no one knows # 100. Just keep searching, keep peering into that blackness, you might see the total nothing. Maybe not. 100 ZERO.
The Reinhardt Black Paintings do seem to keep us peering into the blackness, no knowing no concluding no saying no silence not at all. He painted them to do it. They succeed beautifully.
This is a lonely job for even the devoted. We all love human joys and experiences, most especially sharing our experiences about what we see and how we feel. Human happiness is so lovely.
By calling that type of Absolute extreme, I share the approach of my studio as so much more humane. We want viewers to be confounded and quisical, to look at it this way and that, share their thoughts, expand the meanings and make comparisons to physical joy, wild thunder, old lovers, rivulets, dawns, 'Teresa in Ecstasy', by Bernini. We want to encourage variable open interpretations. This is the sweet kindness of art, of sharing and exchanging, convivial and kind, appreciation of our opinions, like going to the wall to pray together or sitting beside each other, rather than a lonely cold cave ( I have been there myself and swear by the messiness of our commonplace world, with occasional fasts or Lent). A work of Art becomes a social contract, collective culture.
The mystery of mystical number name 100 might be : ______________.