2.2 abex new3

Barne& Newman (1905-‐1970) Barne& Newman’s approach to pain3ng was deeply intellectual

Irving Penn, Barne& Newman, 1966

Barne& Newman (1905-‐1970)

Image source: h&p://theoldmistressesandme.wordpress.com/

“We are reasser3ng man’s natural desire for the exalted, for a concern with our rela3onship to the absolute emo3ons” Barne& Newman


Caspar David Friedrich, The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, 1818, Kunsthalle Hamburg

“Whatever is fi&ed in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that, is, it is produc3ve of the strongest emo3on which the mind is capable of feeling. I say the ,strongest emo3on, because I am sa3sfied the ideas of pain are much more powerful than those which enter on the part of pleasure.” Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origins of our ideas of the Sublime and BeauDful, 1756

Barne& Newman (1905-‐1970) The Beau3ful = pleasure

The Sublime = an encounter with the “infinite” that reminds of our insignificance and mortality

Barne& Newman, Pagan Void, 1946 Philadelphia Museum of Art

Barne& Newman (1905-‐1970) Breakthrough came with Onement I – painted on his birthday 1948

Barne& Newman, Onement I, 1948 Museum of Modern Art

“ . . . . I painted it on my birthday (January 29) in 1948. It's a small red pain3ng, and I put a piece of tape in the middle, and I put my so-‐called zip.” Allen Memorial Museum

Barne& Newman (1905-‐1970) Newman likened the canvas to the primordial void

“"[I]t can be said that the ar3st like a true creator is delving into chaos. It is precisely this that makes him an ar3st, for the Creator in crea3ng the world began with the same material-‐-‐for the ar3st tried to wrest truth from the void.” Barne& Newman, “The Plasmic Imag,” 1945

Jackson Pollock in front of a blank canvas

Barne& Newman (1905-‐1970) The “zip” is the primal moment of crea3on


“For Newman and for subsequent art historians, Onement I (he added the ordinate aher 1948) was a momentous enactment of pain3ng as a "tabula rasa," a primal site or instance of "crea3on" in various senses of the term.” Allen Memorial Museum



“Onement I symbolizes Genesis. It is an act of crea3on and division. Newman’s zip down the middle evokes God’s separa3on of light and darkness, a line drawn in the void. Like the Old Testament god, the ar3st starts with chaos, with the void . . . . The zip is the primal act.” Jonathan Fineberg, p. 101


Barne& Newman, Vir Heroicus Sublimus, 1950-‐1 7' 11 3/8" x 17' 9 1/4" Museum of Modern Art

“The La3n 3tle of this pain3ng can be translated as "Man, heroic and sublime." . . . Newman hoped the viewer would stand close to his expansive work, and he likened the experience to a human encounter. “ Museum of Modern Art

Barne& Newman and an uniden3fied viewer with Cathedra in Newman's studio, 1958. Photo Peter A. Juley Image source: h&p://www.artnet.com/Magazine/index/tuchman/tuchman4-‐8-‐3.asp

Image source: h&p://www.flickr.com/photos/javierucles/212609489/

2.2 abex new3

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