Color Field Painting and Surrealism
By Kathleen Karlsen, MA |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nevertheless, among the three major American color field painters, Helen Frankenthaler (1928- ), Morris Louis (1912-1962) and Kenneth Noland (1924- ), Frankenthaler’s exposure to Salvador Dali’s Persistence of Memory (1931) impressed her greatly with the capacity of the human imagination.
Frankenthaler’s soaking and staining methods also owe a debt to the Surrealistic emphasis on chance, randomness and spontaneity. 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.
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. This impersonalized mode fully investigates the physical properties paint. Louis’s quest for freedom, then, was not a Surrealistic attempt to escape from morality and logic, but the desire to fully probe the fundamental role of the artist and to explore the limitless potential of the materials of art. Louis’s automatic methods gave him this opportunity and the results expanded the traditional range of esthetic possibilities.
SEE Kathleen's ABSTRACT ART HERE ©2007 Kathleen Karlsen
RESOURCES: Books Arnason, H.H.. History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Photography. New York: Abrams, 1986. Battcock, Gregory, ed. The New Art: A Critical Anthology, rev. ed. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1973. Chevreul, M.E. The Principals of Harmony and Contrast of Colors and Their Applications to the Arts (1839). Ed. Faber Birren. New York: Reinhold, 1967. Elderfield, John. Morris Louis. Haarlem, England: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1974. Hughes, Robert. The Shock of the New. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991. LeClair, Charles. Color in Contemporary Painting. New York: Watson-Guptill, 1991. Lucie-Smith, Edward. Art Now: From Abstract Expressionism to Surrealism. New York: William Morrow, 1981. Lucie-Smith, Edward. Movements in Art Since 1945, rev. ed. London: Rose, Barbara. American Painting: The Twentieth Century, rev. ed. New York: Rizzoli International, 1986. Rose, Barbara. Frankenthaler. New York: Abrams, 1971. Selz, Peter. Art In Our Times: A Pictorial History 1890-1980. New York: Upright, Diane. Morris Louis: The Complete Paintings. New York: Abrams, 1985. Waldeman, Diane. Kenneth Noland: A Retrospective. New York: Abrams, 1977. Websites Article Use Policy: All content on this web site is protected by international copyright laws for intellectual property and may not be reproduced, used, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission. Contact the author for permission to reprint articles for your own website, newsletter or other publications. Credit must be given to the author, a copyright notification must be included and a link to http://www.kathleenkarlsen.com. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
The artistic quest for liberation, focused in 
Although Frankenthaler’s 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 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. 
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 the Surrealistic "automatism" (chance) by allowing paint to flow and spread to create an image. Louis’s Veil paintings are perhaps the best examples of this type of self-generated image.
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 short, Noland appears to be virtually unaffected by Surrealistic themes and methods. 
