Greetings,

In the eighteenth century, German poet, philosopher, and critic Gotthold Lessing established the principles that would dominate discussions about aesthetics for the next two hundred years. Lessing maintained that respective art forms, particularly poetry and painting, cannot be evaluated comparatively but only on the basis of the purity of the properties intrinsic to specific artistic categories themselves. Poetry, for example, which must be read or recited, unfolds over time while painting, which is taken in all at once, is concerned with space and simultaneity. Subsequent critics who embraced this theory focused on aspects of painting that were fundamental to it, such as color and the flatness of the picture plane or canvas.

The exhibition Color as Field: American Painting, 1950–1975 (June 20–September 21, 2008) presents a rare opportunity to consider major works of art that were created at a moment when formalist criticism was at the height of its influence. Artists in this exhibition were drawn not only to the properties of color but also to the materiality of paint and how it connects to its ground—by soaking and staining the flat canvas. Pouring paint onto unprimed canvas minimized the layering of colors and denied the one-point perspective that had established painting as a window on reality during the Italian Renaissance. The works in Color as Field are self-referential, not illusionistic. Because Color Field paintings are large in scale with especially fragile surfaces, they are rarely available for travel. We are pleased to have the opportunity to see these monumental works first hand.

Please join us this summer for an aesthetic experience that was two hundred years in the making.





Susan H. Edwards, Ph.D.
director@fristcenter.org