shapes as the hard-edge artists had done, the color-field painters
poured diluted paint onto unprimed canvas, allowing the pigments
to soak in. It is hard to conceive of another painting method that re-
sults in such literal flatness. The images created, such as The Bay (FIG.
36-12) by Helen Frankenthaler(b. 1928), appear spontaneous
and almost accidental (see “Helen Frankenthaler on Color-FieldPainting,” above). These works differ from those of Rothko and New-
man in that Frankenthaler subordinated the emotional component,
so integral to Abstract Expressionism, to resolving formal problems.MORRIS LOUIS Another artist who pursued color-field paint-
ing was Morris Louis(1912–1962). Clement Greenberg, an ad-
mirer of Frankenthaler’s paintings, took Louis to
her studio, and there she introduced him to the
possibilities presented by the staining technique.
Louis used this method of pouring diluted paint
onto the surface of unprimed canvas in several
series of paintings.Saraband (FIG. 36-13) is one
of the works in Louis’s Veils series. By holding up
the canvas edges and pouring on diluted acrylic
resin, Louis created billowy, fluid, transparent
shapes that run down the length of the canvas. Like
Frankenthaler, Louis reduced painting to the con-
crete fact of the paint-impregnated material.I
n 1965 the art critic Henry Geldzahler
interviewed Helen Frankenthaler about
her work as an abstract painter. In the fol-
lowing excerpt, Frankenthaler describes
her approach to placing color on canvas
(FIG. 36-12) and compares her method
with the way earlier modernist artists used
color in their paintings.
I will sometimes start a picture feeling
“What will happen if I work with three
blues and another color, and maybe
more or less of the other color than the
combined blues?” And very often mid-
way through the picture I have to
change the basis of the experience....
When you first saw a Cubist or Impressionist picture there was a
whole way of instructing the eye or the subconscious. Dabs of color
had to stand for real things; it was an abstraction of a guitar or a
hillside. The opposite is going on now. If you have bands of blue,
green, and pink, the mind doesn’t think sky, grass and flesh. These
are colors and the question is what are they doing with themselves
and with each other. Sentiment and nuance are being squeezed out.*
* Henry Geldzahler, “Interview with Helen Frankenthaler,”Artforum4, no. 2
(October 1965), 37–38.Helen Frankenthaler
on Color-Field PaintingARTISTS ON ART36-12Helen
Frankenthaler,The
Bay,1963. Acrylic on
canvas, 6 87 – 8 6 97 – 8 .
Detroit Institute of
Arts, Detroit.
Color-field painters like
Frankenthaler poured
paint onto unprimed
canvas, allowing the
pigments to soak into
the fabric. Her works
underscore that a
painting is simply
pigment on a flat
surface.36-13Morris Louis,Saraband,1959. Acrylic
resin on canvas, 8 5 –^18 12 5 . Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, New York.
Louis created his color-field paintings by holding up
the canvas edges and pouring diluted acrylic resin to
produce billowy, fluid, transparent shapes that run
down the length of the fabric.Painting and Sculpture, 1945 to 1970 9771 ft.
1 ft.