Josef ALBERS - Homage to the Square (1964)

 

Homage to the square

1976
Oil painting on canvas (76x76 cm)
Tate Gallery, London

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The squares are four, even if they appear to be only three; abstract Art is like this, it doesn't want to tell us a story or something in general but tries to help us see with new perspectives, overcoming our limits.

The square is a stable and rigid geometric figure but here it seems to lose these characteristics by lightening and floating, thanks to the optical illusion that is created with the superimposition of these colours.

All areas of this surface are painted with a single color applied directly from the tube and spread with the spatula. A not negligible detail, as if there was no intermediation of the palette and therefore of the artist's sensitivity.

This work is part of the great movement of Op Art as regards the search for optical illusion while from the point of view of color (considering its use and method of drafting) we are in full abstraction school.

The entrance ticket for this artistic language includes a simple rule: it does not look for a story or a why, you simply have to let yourself be carried away and follow the thread of your thoughts that arise during the prolonged and introspective vision.

Josef Albers is not only an artist but also a theorist. His activity will see him very engaged in teaching since 1923 where in his Germany he will give lessons at the Bauhaus. In 1933 (for obvious reasons related to German politics) he will move to America to be able to teach artists and students at Yale University.

In 1963 he published a book that represents the crowning achievement of his artistic research: The interaction of color; work in which he explores the theme of color perception, a research that has engaged him throughout his artistic life.

How do we perceive colours? What do they transmit to us? What do they represent?

Comparing artists: Andre, Van Doesburg, Kelly, Klee, Reinhardt, Vasarely