ABSTRACT CONTEMPORARY ART

The Golden Waterfall 16x20" $150	The Water Element 11x14" $115	Geyser 12x16" $120	Dragon's Breath 8x10" $85
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Ocean's Edge 4x12" $65	A Little Wave 4x12" $65	Before the Wave 4x12" $65	A Colorful Storm 18x24" $175
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White Gold 12X12" $110	A Rich Vein 8x8" $75	Drops of Gold 9x12" $95	Metallic Blend 8x8" $75
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On A Gold Streak 6X18" $95	Melting Point 6X18" $95	Kentucky Agate 16x20" $150	Red Agate 16x20" $150
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Fiber of Life 8x8" $75	Amethyst River 8x8" $75	Purple Fantasy 8x8" $75
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SELECTED SOLD PAINTINGS		Contact artist to create similar painting.
Transformation 8x10", SOLD Abstract Contemporary Art	Sunshine on Water 12x12", SOL D Abstract Contemporary Art	Cosmic Flowers 8x10", SOLD Abstract Contemporary Art	Ruby Cascade 8x8",SOLD Abstract Contemporary Art
The Pond 8x16",SOLD Abstract Contemporary Art	Reaching for the Gold 8x8", SOLD Abstract Contemporary Art	Silver and Gold 20x24", SOLD Abstract Contemporary Art	The One Wave 14x18", SOLD Abstract Contemporary Art
The Golden River 6X18", SOLD Abstract Contemporary Art

Meaning of Types of Paintings Above

Meaning of the Water Element: The feng shui symbols associated with the water element reflect the ideas of clarity and reflection.There is a connection the clear of blue colorsof various forms of water. The feng shui symbols for the water element in terms of shape include all free flowing shapes. Think of the shapes that a lake or a body of water night take in motion or at rest. Likewise, design motifs for the water element would be smooth, flowing patterns without angles or straight edges.

Meaning of the Fire Element: Fire energy is characterized by its ability to give off warmth and attract others. Predominately fire personality types place a great deal of emphasis on interpersonal relationships. According to five element feng shui, they are romantic and idealistic, enthusiastic and emotional. Fire energy is the energy of life, represented by sunshine, fire itself, warm-blooded animals and people. To strengthen your fire energy, use art including any aspect of the fire element in your environment.

Meaning of the Metal Element: Feng shui metals are used to enhance, control and balance energy within a home or office. Feng shui metals include bronze, copper, gold and silver. Design motifs for feng shui metals are smooth, rounded patterns akin to the fluid forms that metals take when melted. Feng shui metals have a very yang quality, helping to attract physical wealth and abundance into your life. Feng shui metals are especially useful for home offices and kitchens since these are the places where you usually want to expand your money (particularly gold and silver) or the abundance of your food. Metals in a free-flowing form are more powerful than solid items created from metal because metals in liquid form adds the symbolism of wealth flowing into your life.

Meaning of Abstract Color-Based Art: The sense of freedom and joy in the materials themselves in abstract contemporary art and in the very act of creation are conveyed by the ever-new variations that can be mined from the rich vein of abstract color. Historically speaking, color has traditionally embodied a fairly codified set of associative symbols.The use of color in abstract contemporary art works has often rejected these traditional meanings. Instead, color can be imbued with personal and unconventional meanings and negative associations can be transformed into purely positive meanings. 

ALL ABOUT ABSTRACT CONTEMPORARY ART

By Kathleen Karlsen, MA

Gallery Wrap Canvases and Abstract Contemporary Art

After many years of trying a variety of frames and approaches to displaying art, I have finally come to the conclusion that a gallery-wrapped canvas offers the most benefits to the customer and to the artist, especially those creating abstract contemporary art. Gallery-wrapped canvas also go well with abstract contemporary art, which tends to give the impression that the painting is actually not contained within the borders of the canvas, but extends energetically beyond the edge. Paintings on gallery-wrapped canvas can be hung without a frame and still offer a finished look. At times I extend the painting itself around the edge of the canvas and at other times the edges are painted a color that is complementary to the painting itself or a color like black that mimics the effect of a frame.

Gallery-wrapped canvases are revolutionizing the making and display of art. In my own experience, the frame that an artist puts on a piece of art often is a barrier to the sale of the art. Customers may not want to purchase a painting with a black frame, for example, if the frame will not fit with their own decor. Frames are expensive for the artist to purchase, driving the price of art higher, especially if the artist has to reframe a piece to fit the decor of the customer. Frames are also difficult to store and eventually get damaged if the piece is on display in numerous locations before a sale occurs. Finally, frames are heavy and awkward to ship, causes shipping and handling prices to increase as well.

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Impressionists and Abstract Contemporary Art

The Impressionistic emphasis on variations in light and color was greatly influenced by the scientific approach to color that was prominent in the 19th century.  This approach was encapsulated in a landmark publication in 1839 by M.E. Chevreul entitled The Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colors and Their Applications to the Arts.  Chevreul’s investigations into the optical effects of colors led to his development of a series of guidelines for color usage which could be adapted to artistic endeavors of all types. 

Chevreul’s “laws” are particularly apropos for styles such as Impressionism and Color Field painting that utilize distinct patches of solid color:  “In painting in flat tints, the colors are neither shaded nor blended together….  If the choice of contiguous colors has been made in conformity with the law of simultaneous contrast, the effect of the color will be greater than if it had been painted on the system of chiaroscuro.”(The Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colors, p. 136).

In other words, a pure hue placed next to another pure hue will result in a more dramatic optical effect than side-by-side colors that have been muted through traditional shading and rendering.  Like many of the innovative Impressionists, the American Color Field painters sought to investigate the phenomenon of color contrasts in a deep and intuitive way.  Frankenthaler’s pivotal work Mountains and Sea (1952) is an appropriately fluid approach to both abstraction and color contrast.  The aquatic blues and greens are sometimes distinct and sometimes partially overlapping.  The irregular, organic shapes are often separated from each other by intervening canvas, and the colors are soft, muted and atmospheric. 

In Frankenthaler’s later paintings, such as the intensely colorful Tutti Frutti (1966) and the more geometric piece entitled The Human Edge (1967), the shapes of color touch and overlap slightly but do not interpenetrate one another.  The chromatic contrasts are certainly more vivid than in the earlier Mountains and Sea.  Although the tints in all three works are flat in a physical sense, they contain a multitude of variations in opacity and tone.  These variations are, in fact, hallmarks of Frankenthaler’s works and one of the great strengths of her style.

Morris Louis’s continuation of the Impressionist’s exploration of light and color resulted in two major avenues of expression.  First, he produced a series of works, known as the Veils, in which he utilized multiple layers of thinned paint.  Like the Impressionist Claude Monet’s groundbreaking series of paintings of haystacks, cathedrals and water lilies, Louis fully investigated the color possibilities in each group of paintings that he produced based on a single idea. 

In Louis’s Blue Veil (1958), for example, the succession of layers of yellow, red, green and blue are directly imposed upon one another.  Only along the edges of the piece are the individual colors visible.  In contrast with this practice, many of Louis’s subsequent series, especially the Stripes and Unfurleds, allowed the colors to stand independently in almost stark contrast with one another.  Other works, such as While Series II (1959-1960), are masterful combinations of these two approaches and include both overlapping colors and pure, unlayered hues.        

The optical effects of flat tints of contiguous colors were perhaps investigated more thoroughly by Kenneth Noland than by any other American Color Field painter.  Like many of the Impressionists, Claude Monet foremost among them, and like his contemporary and close friend Morris Louis, Noland also painted in series.  Noland’s series include the Circles, the Chevrons and the Stripes.

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American Color Field Painting and Abstract Contemporary Art

The extraordinary abstract contemporary art movement known as American Color Field Painting both continued and challenged prior esthetic traditions. Beginning in the late 1950s, thisabstract contemporary art movement influenced the entire world of art. American Color Field Painting was a combination of shared revolutionary techniques and unique individual solutions to the traditional problems and considerations of artistic expression. The works of three of the foremost American Color Field Painters—Helen Frankenthaler (1928-present), Kenneth Noland (1924-2010) and Morris Louis (1912-1962)—reveal the definitive characteristics of Color Field painting in general and the presence of distinct styles within this remarkable abstract contemporary art movement. 

In order to set American Color Field Painting in its proper historical context, key abstract contemporary art movements including Impressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism must be considered. Each of these abstract contemporary art movements contributed essential components to the formulation and reformulation of modern abstract art. This new type of art reevaluated traditional pictorial elements including naturalistic perspective, color use, the function of line and shape, and the role of formatting. Additionally, the definitive characteristics of American Color Field Painting help to indicate the general range and scope of the abstract contemporary art movement.  

Although Frankenthaler, Louis and Noland each developed distinct modes of abstract contemporary art, they shared a common emphasis on color as a central aspect of painting. All three also shared a rejection of the focus on the conscious social and political responsibilities of art. Their love of materials and their joyous and strenuous endeavors to redefine the boundaries of abstract contemporary art are among their exceptional contributions to the ongoing evolution of modern esthetic values.

Four of the major aspects of abstract contemporary art carried forward by Frankenthaler, Noland and Louis were an emphasis on the infinite potential for variations in light and color; the practice of creating multiple interpretations, known as a series, on a single theme; the relentless pursuit of the dual identity of art as both illusion and reality; and the use of landscape elements. 

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The Dual Nature of Reality and Abstract Contemporary Art

Noland’s choice of the circle as the basic structure for a series of approximately 175 paintings is significant.  Although some art historians claim that Noland’s use of the circle is devoid of symbolic meaning, others disagree.  Diane Waldeman, author of  Kenneth Noland:  A Retrospective, discusses the appropriateness of Noland’s preference for the circle over the square or other geometric forms: "Clearly, the circle was a much more satisfying form than the square for Noland.  The circle is related to the cosmos, while the square is most closely associated with man and     manmade forms like architecture.  The circle stands for eternity….  Because it has neither beginning nor end, the circle has, since antiquity, been symbolic of natural phenomenon, organic growth, mysticism and divinity (p. 21).

The universality of the circle was particularly suitable for the abstract color language of Noland’s art.  Noland’s selection of the circle is also related to his quest for a synthesis between meaning and method in abstract contemporary art.  Noland believed that the best matching of subject matter and art content had been accomplished in the works of the Impressionists and Cezanne.  Likewise, Noland’s attempt to eliminate attention given to structure in order to focus on color resulted in his selection of this most basic geometric form—the circle.  In this way, he could best achieve his objective of harmonizing the reality and the illusion inherent in abstract contemporary art.

In his circle paintings, Noland successfully uses a simple arrangement of concentric circles (sometimes referred to as “targets”) to display his incredibly keen sense of color. These simple, geometric works pulsate with energy and movement.  Noland’s Whirl (1960) is a delightful example of this ability.  The concentric circles— beginning with an innermost red, then white, then black, then blue— spin so quickly that the outermost color cannot be contained in a uniform band.  Instead, the deep aquatic blue splashes out of its expected boundaries in humorous visual play.

This visual play, based on the dual identity of abstract contemporary art as reality and illusion, is a key component of Color Field painting that also connects color field painting to late Impressionism.  Like the Impressionists, the Color Field painters in general viewed the canvas itself and the materiality of the paint as part of the real identity of painting.  In contrast with this, the form and movement created by color is seen as part of the illusion.  The attempt to balance and synthesize these two elements into a single entity in abstract contemporary art was the driving force behind many of the innovations of Frankenthaler, Louis and Noland.

Interestingly enough, the abstract contemporary art of Louis similarly reduced pictorial elements to a minimum while retaining this playful relationship between reality and illusion.  In many of his Stripe paintings, Louis allowed the drips at the bottom of each stripe to be visible when the painting was cropped and hung.  However, rather than having the drips at the bottom of the paintings according to an orientation based on gravity, the pieces were hung so that the stripes appeared to be running upward and the “drips” were close to the top of the paintings.  Louis’s beautiful work Unfolding Light (1961) is an example of this approach. Obviously contrary to natural laws, this light-hearted positioning was a different and unique solution in the ongoing exploration of the dual identity of abstract contemporary art.

Frankenthaler’s response to the problem of abstract contemporary art’s dual nature often includes the unmistakable landscape elements that she shares with Impressionism.  More than either Louis or Noland, the works of Frankenthaler are likely to feature horizontal patches of color clearly reminiscent of oceans, islands, horizons, skies and even cityscapes.  Although some critics have also seen landscape references in Louis’ horizontal motifs, Frankenthaler’s ties to the natural world are much more evident.  Suggestive titles such as Arcadia and Eden indicate her conscious indebtedness to landscape art.  Furthermore, the ephemeral quality of many of Frankenthaler’s images, including Mountains and Sea demonstrates her awareness of the fragility of both nature (the reality) and of artistic creativity (the illusion).

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The Conventions of Cubism and Abstract Contemporary Art

It is the connection between Cubism and Color Field painting that is most readily admitted by Frankenthaler, Louis and Noland.  However, this is not to say that these three painters adopted the conventions of Cubism.  On the contrary, much of what they developed through their experimentation with abstract contemporary art was a reaction against Cubism’s shallow, agitated and crumpled space; it’s tight, sculptural forms; and it’s essentially graphic structure.

Rather than trying to deepen Cubism’s shallow space, the Color Field painters further flattened the pictorial space by almost completely eliminating both brush-strokes and drawing. The soak-stain approach developed by Frankenthaler in the early 1950s reinforced the two-dimensionality of the canvas.  Frankenthaler’s technique consisted of greatly diluting paint and then applying the thinned pigments onto unprimed canvas by spilling or staining.  In this way, the paint soaked directly into the weave of the canvas.  The space normally created by surface illusions was therefore virtually non-existent.

Louis’s adaptation of Frankenthaler’s abstract contemporary art method, which he contacted during a visit with Noland to her studio in New York in 1953, was more systematic.  Although Louis worked in closely protected privacy, the general facts of his novel procedures are known.  Like Frankenthaler, Louis poured thinned acrylic paint onto unsized canvas.  Louis’s exploration of the properties of paint led him to develop his own characteristic ways to subtly channel the pigments.
 
Louis draped and sometimes stapled raw canvas to a frame or scaffolding that could be moved to control the flow of the paint.  He also employed a stick wrapped in gauze when he desired to further direct the flow of the paint.  The canvas itself may have been pleated or held in troughs.  Larger works were created in sections and a fan was used to speed drying.  By utilizing these approaches, Louis was able to manipulate the paint without disturbing the flattened space.   

Likewise, Kenneth Noland’s distinctive abstract contemporary art methods completed the flattening of space begun by the Cubists.  Noland’s early experiments included thickly applying paint with his fingers as well as pouring and staining in thin washes.  Once he had begun exclusively employing geometric shapes, he defined his shapes through taping or by lightly outlining objects such as dinner plates or hoops.  Noland did utilize free hand painting with brushes within the hard-edged shapes, but his tints are strong and consistently flatter in texture and appearance than those of either Louis or Frankenthaler.  Certainly his surfaces lacked the disconcerting restlessness that typified shallow Cubist space. Cubist painting also involved sculptural forms.  These forms limited the size of their pieces since they could not be related to one another in a unified manner across a wide area of canvas. 

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The Influence of Jackson Pollack on and Abstract Contemporary Art

One of the challenges for abstract contemporary art in general, and for the Color Field painters in particular, was to find a way to successfully create a larger format. Leading the way to this new format was the pivotal American artist Jackson Pollack. Of the three Color Field painters under consideration, Frankenthaler was the most closely associated with Jackson Pollack.  Frankenthaler, accompanied by the prominent art critic Clement Greenberg, visited Pollack and his wife on their New York farm on number of occasions.  Pollack’s abstract contemporary art , created through dripping and splashing paint onto large canvases placed on the floor in his barn, were Cubist in their limited color scale, linear components and repetitive similarity.  However, his “all-over” structure, consisting of an evenly accented surface, was a major innovation that opened the door to the expansive canvases that virtually became the trademark of much of abstract contemporary art and particularly of the Color Field painters. 

The tremendous potential embodied in Pollack’s abstract contemporary art approach did not escape the young Frankenthaler.  She had experimented with working from all directions on level rather than easel-based canvases in the past, but after witnessing Pollack’s methods, she adopted this approach almost exclusively.  Likewise, Louis’s utilization of Pollack’s structure is particularly apparent in the centralized, “all-over” images of his early Floral series.  In these abstract contemporary art works, the joyful, colorful images are created through overlapping stripes which cross one another in the center of the canvas and spread much like petals radiating out from the center of a flower. 

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Geometric Art of Mondrian and Abstract Contemporary Art

The structure of Cubism, based on light and dark rather than color relationships, was essentially a graphic form of abstract contemporary art. Kenneth Noland’s ambition, therefore, was to turn graphic structure into color-based structure.  Noland chose to base his works on a structure of simplified geometric forms which would serve merely as a clear structure for color.  This approach, in direct contrast with the complicated Cubist compositions, also reveals Noland’s indebtedness to Piet Mondrian, an exceptional Dutch painter who had himself arrived at abstraction via Cubism. In spite of these similarities, however, Noland’s methods differed from Mondrian’s system in his solutions to several fundamental abstract contemporary art issues. 

Mondrian’s concern was with creating balanced asymmetry, whereas Noland focused on the utilization of balanced symmetry.  This was especially true in his Circle paintings, which employ the center as a fulcrum, and in the majority of his mature work.  When Noland did employ asymmetry in his abstract contemporary art, he did not necessarily strive for the more conventional balance that Mondrian achieved.  In Noland’s chevron painting entitled 17th Stage (1964), for example, the tip of the chevron is significantly angled to the left rather than ending in the center of the bottom edge of the painting. The viewer’s sense of imbalance (which must be greatly increased when standing in front of this large, 95” x 83” canvas) seems to be part of Noland’s optical play.

Noland also availed himself of a wide range of expressive color in contrast with Mondrian’s strict limitation to white, black, red, yellow and blue. Mondrian further constrained himself to horizontals and verticals while Noland experimented with curves, spheres, and diagonals.  Although Noland’s abstract contemporary art is categorized as hard-edged, their edges actually possess numerous irregularities on both a large and small scale. The splashing effect in the outermost ring of Whirl has already been noted above. More subtle but clearly evident irregularities are present in all of the edges of the chevron bands in 17th Stage. Even the more perfected edges of the circular bands in Noland’s highly controlled works such as Sunshine (1961) still contain perceptible irregularities. Noland’s search is apparently not for the stability and classical balance of Mondrian’s abstract works, but for energetic and lively effects which are masterful in their own right.

Noland’s Circle paintings, including the refined Sunshine, are exemplary of his own structural approach to abstract contemporary art based on the union of geometric shapes with the optical effects of color. In Sunshine, Noland has placed an outermost circle (a band of green) within inches of the edge on a large (84”x 84”) canvas. The next circle of blue towards the center of the canvas is in close proximity to the green band. The next concentric band, however, a golden orange-yellow, is set apart equidistantly from both the outer two bands and the innermost band of pink. The circular image as a whole, of course, is distributed equally around all four sides of the canvas. In this way, Noland maintains the structural unity of his abstract contemporary art in spite of its significant size.

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Understanding Fauvism and Abstract Contemporary Art

In addition to Color Field painting’s reactionary relationship to Cubism, art historians and critics have seen a more conciliatory relationship between Fauvism and the Color Field movement of abstract contemporary art. Fauvism, a short-lived approach to painting focused in France between 1905 and 1907, was characterized by inventive shapes and lines, a pictorial logic based on internal relationships rather than naturalism, and the use of bright, sensationalistic color. The central role of color in abstract contemporary art is the aspect of Fauvism most notably shared with the American Color Field painters. Of the three artists under consideration, Frankenthaler and Louis have the most direct links to Fauvism. Any connections between Noland and Fauvism, if present at all, are much less direct.

Frankenthaler adopted much of Fauvism’s pictorial logic, including the juxtaposition of discrete areas of irregularly contoured color.  This association is clear in Frankenthaler’s enjoyable abstract contemporary art called Tutti Frutti (1966).  In Tutti Frutti, Frankenthaler has placed large, organically shaped patches of red, orange, blue, yellow, yellow-green, blue-green and teal adjacent to one another in a puzzle-like arrangement. The bright colors play off of one another and interact with one another in an exaggerated, good-humored way. This sense of optimism and the celebration of color and pleasure are associated with the aims of Fauvism. Fauvism’s liberation of color from symbolic meaning and its view of color as  a sign of life and vitality are compelling messages carried forward in much of Frankenthaler’s work as well as in American Color Field painting and abstract contemporary art in general. 

Historically speaking, color has traditionally embodied a fairly codified set of associative symbols. For example, red has almost inevitably been related to fire, blood, and danger. Black has been indicative of death, emptiness and mourning. White has been the indisputable sign of purity. The use of color in Fauvism as well as in other abstract contemporary art works has often rejected these traditional meanings. Instead, color can be imbued with personal and unconventional meanings. 

Particularly in contemporary abstract works, the freedom from color-induced expectations has been eagerly explored.  As Marcia Tucker has observed succinctly in her article “The Structure of Color,” an essay included in Gregory Battcock’s anthology The New Art, “[t]he possibilities of response to abstract works…are more varied, since we are not bound by the color ‘expectations’ we had in looking at figurative works; there is no area that should consist of a particular hue” (p. 232).  The inherent power and strength of color can therefore be revealed in the viewer’s emotional response to the color itself.

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Color in Abstract Contemporary Art

For Frankenthaler, Louis and Noland, color became both form and subject for abstract contemporary art.  In Frankenthaler’s abstract “landscapes,” including works as diverse as The Human Edge and Mountains and Sea, the locales aren’t specific, but the colors and shapes reflect the rhythm of nature. In The Human Edge, the deep blue at the lower edge is an obvious reference to water. The thin, dark shape just above the blue horizontal is immediately reminiscent of a seashore or landmass. The large open space above the “land” is atmospheric. At the top of the painting, perhaps where clouds might be expected, Frankenthaler has painted three irregular, hard-edged rectangles in gray, orange and pink. The combination of colors and shapes in this abstract contemporary art is intriguing when considered with the evocative title. Is the edge of the seashore/landmass the “human edge” or are the oddly inverted rectangles in the “sky” the “human edge” in contrast with the more naturalistic edge created by the blue and brown horizontals?
           
In contrast with the definitive shapes and colors that Frankenthaler utilized in The Human Edge, her well-acclaimed Mountains and Sea employs a very different approach. This abstract contemporary art was painted after Frankenthaler had visited Nova Scotia. Not only has she utilized aquatic blues and greens as noted earlier, but elements of nature are also mimicked in the technique of spilling and splashing and in the results of that technique. There are “splashes” of color throughout the abstract contemporary art and a sense of the organic process of water pooling and evaporating. The rhythm of constant movement encountered at the ocean’s edge is also reflected in the shapes piled up in the center of the painting. These fleeting shapes appear ready to crash down onto the “sand” at any moment.

As these two abstract contemporary art paintings demonstrate, the languages of color and shape are more intrinsically related to each other and to natural themes in Frankenthaler’s works than in the more dissonant schemes of Fauvistic paintings. In fact, even in Frankenthaler’s most abstract contemporary art works, her shapes are fundamentally related to the colors themselves. Thus, the combinations of colors and shapes in Frankenthaler’s works operate on multiple levels. Not only are they perceptual, but the color-shape elements are also capable of functioning on the realistic and emotional levels as well.

Although Frankenthaler sometimes used bold and exaggerated shapes and colors in abstract contemporary art such as Tutti Frutti, she did not wish to emulate the artificiality which she also found in Fauvist works.  Even the tightly arranged shapes in Tutti Frutti do not entirely fill the canvas. Although the canvas shows through only in half a dozen places, these areas give sufficient “breathing room” to the composition.     
                       
Frankenthaler’s influence on Morris Louis was not confined to the contribution of her seminal staining technique, but also involved a transfer of her indebtedness to Fauvism. In addition to developing his own exceptional version of Frankenthaler’s abstract contemporary art painting method, Louis further sought to exaggerate the Fauve aspects he found in Frankenthaler. In contrast with the relatively pale colors of Frankenthaler’s early Mountains and Sea, Louis worked with intense hues from the start. Although these are subdued by the multiple layering in works such as Blue Veil, Louis’s success with paintings consisting of swathes of intense colors is seen in the vast majority of his mature works, including the beautifully vivid While Series II.

In this large abstract contemporary art piece, 8’ x 11’11”, Louis has created a masterful effect with his combinations of color and shape.  The bands of partially overlapping color are thinner at the bottom edge and expand in a leaf-like manner towards the top of the abstract contemporary art piece. The result is not only the distinct impression of organic shapes, but a sense of movement as well. The color-shapes are like fronds waving in the ocean. The visibility of golden yellows in between the darker shapes of brown, green, blue, orange and violet gives the viewer the feeling that the painting is illuminated from behind. Although some of the colors themselves are as vivid as those that appear in Fauvism, the combination of colors and shapes creates a more naturalistic outcome in this form of abstract contemporary art. 

In other abstract contemporary art works by Morris Louis, especially in the Unfurleds and Stripes, color becomes virtually the entire subject. In paintings like Unfolding Light, the chromatic relationships are the sole focus. In contrast with the almost exclusivelyaudacious colors of Fauvism, Louis’s canvases also include black and earth tones—ochres, umbers, muted purples and olive greens—intermixed with the prismatic hues. 

In Unfolding Light (1961), Louis begins with intense bands of red, yellow, and green on the left edge of the series of stripes. As the stripes proceed further to the right, he utilizes additional reds, yellows and greens that have been dulled and muted. The intensity then picks up again with another stripe of vivid red and then green, followed by a space in which the canvas is left blank. Then Louis adds three more dulled stripes of brown, orange and blue, followed by a final yellow that begins with a golden tone near the top of the painting and emerges at the bottom with a bright, sunshine yellow. 

In Unfolding Light, as well as in his paintings in general, Louis has allowed the canvas itself to play a major role. His expanded range of colors also adds airiness to his abstract contemporary art. Like Frankenthaler, he has thus avoided the denseness of many Fauvist paintings. One of the additional major challenges that Louis faces is to maintain pictorial unity across the wide expanse of canvas. He accomplishes this primarily through his use of color. Like the Fauvists, Louis achieves a pictorial logic based on internal relationships as a key element in his abstract contemporary art.   

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Surrealism and and Abstract Contemporary Art

The artistic quest for liberation, focused in Fauvism on authentic feeling, created by non-symbolic color, became the more ambitious quest of the Surrealists for liberation from both logic and morality in abstract contemporary art. Dreams were seen as the gateway to art, and melancholy and fear took precedence over the optimism and decorative joy of Fauve painting. Nevertheless, Frankenthaler’s exposure to Salvador Dali’s Persistence of Memory (1931) impressed her greatly. 

Although Frankenthaler’s abstract contemporary art is antithetical to the morbid psychological content and images of Surrealism, her work does interpret and expand Surrealistic fluidity. In Mountains and Sea, Frankenthaler has transformed a distinct image of reality into a lively, hazy, dream-like abstract contemporary art representation.  However, as the refreshing and delightful Mountains and Sea reveals, Frankenthaler’s lyrical dreams are far removed from the terrifying and obsessive themes of Surrealism. 

Frankenthaler’s soaking and staining methods also owe a debt to Surrealistic automatism. In the hands of both Frankenthaler and Louis, the medium of highly thinned acrylic paint permits self-generated effects as the color tones run together and dissolve like dyes. Beginning in 1947, Morris Louis worked closely with Leonard Bocour in the development of Magna, an acrylic resin paint that was readily adaptable to these crucial techniques. Like Frankenthaler, Louis employed automatism by allowing paint literally to flow to create an image.  Louis’s Veil abstract contemporary artworks are perhaps the best examples of this type of self-generated image.

In Blue Veil, Louis poured paint in successive waves. This produced subtle contours which were not drawn, but which were created within the painting by the action of the medium itself. Louis’s quest for freedom, then, was not a Surrealistic attempt to escape from morality and logic, but the desire for the freedom to fully probe the fundamental role of the artist and to explore the limitless potential of the materials of abstract contemporary art. Louis’s automatic methods gave him this opportunity and the results expanded the traditional range of esthetic possibilities. 

The work of Kenneth Noland, on the other hand, is characterized by carefully planned geometric patterns and color dynamics. Noland’s greatest desire was to find an equilibrium between structure and color. This aim was alien to the complex, neurotic psychological issues of Surrealism and to the approach of automatism in abstract contemporary art. In short, Noland appears to be virtually unaffected by Surrealistic themes and methods. 

For Kenneth Noland, color placement in abstract contemporary art is akin to musical composition. Noland believes that each color possesses a pitch that affects other, adjacent colors, which in turn affect the overall composition. Colors can also be used in conjunction with each other like major and minor chords and repeated in varying ways to create visual counterpoint. The musical analogies include harmony, dissonance, tone, and volume dynamics.  

Noland’s outstanding painting entitled Song (1958) is the most obvious example of his attempt to translate musical sounds into color harmonies. The central pink circle, surrounded by a ring of red, then a concentric band of black, then red again, then deep blue and then a final band of gray with a hazy, irregular edge, is like a single brass note vibrating outwardly until the sound begins to disintegrate and fade.  The horn is blaring and the message of Fauvism is carried forward clearly:  life, pleasure and color are to be acclaimed boldly and without apology in abstract contemporary art. In Noland’s Song, color has found a voice and the internal harmonies are exquisitely tight and strong.

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Expressionism and Abstract Contemporary Art

The contemporary movement known as Abstract Expressionism, on the other hand, greatly affected all three artists. In fact, many art historians refer to the Color Field painters in general as “second generation” Abstract Expressionists. The movements do share two fundamental characteristics: the overall composition and a notably large scale. However, the Color Field painters can be defined more clearly by what they rejected in Abstract Expressionism than by what they utilized in their abstract contemporary art. 

The Abstract Expressionists concentrated much of their energy on the gestural aspect of the individual brush stroke. In contrast with this, the Color Field painters sought either to impersonalize their art by permitting the materials themselves to create the forms or by utilizing hard-edged shapes with relatively flattened tints. As noted above, Frankenthaler worked in both modes in her abstract contemporary art.  Mountains and Sea possesses free-flowing elements that are at least partially self-generated, and The Human Edge utilizes hard-edged shapes with flatter tints. The more amorphous forms and the somewhat varied tints within the shapes of Tutti Frutti are somewhere in between. 

Louis, of course, adopted the first approach almost exclusively in his abstract contemporary art. Even in his Unfolding Light, a more controlled, planned work in comparison with his earlier, free-flowing Veils, the paint has been allowed to run fairly independently of the artist’s “brush” in parallel stripes down (or up!) the canvas. Noland, on the other hand, employed the second approach in his abstract contemporary art. His use of flat shapes and tints is quite distant from the gestural emphasis of the Abstract Expressionists. His almost mathematically executed geometric shapes, seen clearly in Sunshine, consist of highly uniform tones. And the slight variations present at the edges of the concentric circles in his abstract contemporary art result more from his system of taping than from his brush strokes.

The Large Scale of Abstract Contemporary Art

The large scale that the Abstract Expressionists and the Color Field painters shared when creating their abstract contemporary art was a major break with the historical convention of easel painting. Although murals have been a part of the esthetic tradition for millennia, the large canvases of the Abstract Expressionists and Color Field painters were intended to be hung and, of course, could be moved from place to place. The scale of these abstract contemporary art works, which allow the viewer to actually “walk into” the painting since “the edges of the painting disappear from our line of vision” (LeClair 111) as they are approached by the viewer, dramatically challenge naturalistic perspective. The spatial experience is completely altered and the abstract contemporary art canvas becomes a type of sky with a new kind of space spreading outward rather than inward. 

This sense of spreading outward works equally well with the expansive, all-over paintings of Frankenthaler and Louis and the centrally focused works of Noland. With Frankenthaler and Louis, the works often seem to continue somewhere outside of the canvas. For example, the cloud-like shapes that fill the canvas in Tutti Frutti feel as though they are part of a larger mass that exists outside of the range of the canvas itself. Louis’s stripes in Unfolding Light likewise may stretch off into infinity at the bottom of the canvas. Noland’s centralized works, such as the exemplary circle painting Song, begin in the center of the canvas and reverberate off into the unseen distance equally in all directions.

Frankenthaler, Louis and Noland employed different shapes as formats while utilizing the characteristically large scale for their abstract contemporary art works. Frankenthaler and Louis generally used different sizes and forms of rectangles and squares. Noland’s emphasis on geometric forms as structure for the display of color in his abstract contemporary art works resulted in an even greater emphasis on the shape of the canvas as well. As Edward Lucie-Smith has noted in Movements in Art Since 1945, Noland exhibited “a growing concern with the identity of the canvas simply as an object” (p. 109).  He ultimately gave added emphasis to the framing edge in his attempt to create a unified whole for his abstract contemporary art. 

For example, the importance of the canvas shape is clear in the interplay between the positive and negative spaces in Noland’s Chevron work 17th Stage. The sense of precarious balance would be destroyed if the tip were further from the bottom edge of the abstract contemporary art. The optical triangles that result from the empty canvas on each side of the chevron would also be destroyed if the frame were either wider or longer. Noland pushed the limits of traditional formatting even further in other works by combining a large scale with unusually shaped canvases. Some abstract contemporary art works were formatted symmetrically with shapes such as diamonds and others were irregularly shaped. With Noland as well as with Frankenthaler and Louis, the framing edge itself had taken on a pictorial importance unprecedented in prior traditions. In accordance with this, all three artists commonly cropped their abstract contemporary art works after they had been completed. Decisions about the ultimate size and shape of each work became the final creative act.

The significance of the large size is also particularly apropos to the color emphasis and the staining techniques of the Color Field painters.  In order to acquire density, the characteristically thinned pigments needed to be spread over a relatively large area. Likewise, the colors themselves gain in impact by displaying themselves broadly across the flat surfaces in abstract contemporary art. This aspect is at the crux of the concept of Color Field painting—the articulation of  the surface of the painting as a field. This ambition stretched significantly beyond the historical boundaries of painting.

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Defining Abstract Contemporary Art

What, then, can be considered to be the definitive characteristics of Color Field painting and abstract contemporary art? Among other names, Color Field painting has been alternately known as Post-Painterly Abstraction, New Abstraction, and Abstract Imagism. The influential art critic Clement Greenberg, mentioned previously as a friend of Frankenthaler and a close associate of both Louis and Noland, used the term post-Painterly Abstraction. By this he meant the “blurred, broken, loose definition of color and contour”. Obviously this applies best to abstract contemporary art works like Frankenthaler’s Mountains and Sea and secondarily to Louis’s Veils. 

Greenberg further differentiates the Color Field painters from the Abstract Expressionists by noting the move towards an openness of design. Certainly Frankenthaler, Louis and Noland all exhibited an openness of design in many of their abstract contemporary art works.  Prime examples of this quality can be seen in Frankenthaler’s The Human Edge, Louis’s Unfolding Light, and Noland’s Sunshine. Linear clarity is also present The Human Edge and in virtually all of the abstract contemporary art works of Kenneth Noland. Linear clarity is less emphasized in the works of Morris Louis, whose overlapping, blended colors are one of the most distinctive aspects of his masterful mature abstract contemporary art pieces.

The high-keyed, lucid color applied in contrasts of pure hue rather than contrasts of light and dark also separates the Color Field painters from the typical Abstract Expressionists. As discussed at length above, the role of color, of course, is the most definitive aspect of Color Field painting in general. Color is, indeed, the chief and universal language of the Color Field painters.

The names New Abstraction and Abstract Imagism, which were applied to Color Field painting by various art critics for convenience, are less descriptive than Greenberg’s term Post-Painterly Abstraction. Even these more generic names did, however, separate the works of the Color Field painters from Pop Art and other abstract contemporary art movements that combine color and optical effects with collage and other types of media. Color Field painting specifically continued the tradition of painting in its purist form.

Color Field painting is further separated from Pop Art and a number of other abstract contemporary art movements in ideal and aim. Color Field painting can be viewed as conservative and apolitical in comparison with the cynical, immoral view of life put forth by Pop Art. The use of amorphous, simplified or geometric shapes and the overwhelming emphasis on color makes the works of Frankenthaler, Louis and Noland universal in their language and message. 

The sense of freedom and joy in the materials themselves in abstract contemporary art and in the very act of creation are conveyed by the ever-new variations that each artist has mined from the rich vein of abstract color. These qualities grant to the works of Frankenthaler, Louis and Noland an ongoing freshness shared by only the best of the traditional masters. The works of Frankenthaler, Louis and Noland can best be described as lyrical, childlike, and unabashedly optimistic. They are a refreshingly bold celebration of life.

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