Color Field

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In quantum mechanics, color field is a whimsical name for some of the properties of quarks.

Color Field painting was an abstract style that emerged in the 1950s after Abstract Expressionism and is largely characterized by abstract canvases painted primarily with large areas of solid color. An alternate but less frequently encountered term for this style is chromatic abstraction.

Contents 1 Discussion and analysis 2 Color Field artists include: 3 See also 4 References

[edit] Discussion and analysis

Color Field painting initially referred to a particular type of abstract expressionism, especially the work of Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell and Adolph Gottlieb. Art critic Clement Greenberg perceived Color Field painting as related to but different from Action painting. During the early to mid-sixties Color Field painting was the term used to describe younger artists like Kenneth Noland, and Helen Frankenthaler, whose work were related to second generation abstract expressionism, and to newer artists like Larry Zox, Frank Stella, all moving in a new direction. Color Field painting clearly pointed toward a new direction in American painting, away from abstract expressionism. Color Field painting is related to Post-painterly abstraction, Suprematism, Abstract Expressionism, Hard-edge painting and Lyrical Abstraction.

Color Field painting sought to rid art of superflous rhetoric. Artists like Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, Larry Zox, and others often used greatly reduced references to nature, and they painted with a highly articulated and psychological use of color. In general these artists eliminated recognizable imagery. Certain artists quoted references to past or present art, but in general color field painting presents abstraction as an end in itself. In pursuing this direction of modern art, artists wanted to present each painting as one unified, cohesive, monolithic image.

In distinction to the emotional energy and gestural surface of Abstract Expressionists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, Color Field painting initially appeared to be cool and austere, effacing the individual mark in favor of large, flat areas of color, which these artists considered to be the essential nature of visual abstraction, along with the actual shape of the canvas, which Frank Stella in particular achieved in unusual ways with combinations of curved and straight edges. However Color Field painting has proven to be both sensual and deeply expressive albeit in a different way from Abstract expressionism.

[edit] Color Field artists include:

• Jack Bush
• Gene Davis
• Thomas Downing
• Friedel Dzubas
• Paul Feeley
• Helen Frankenthaler
• Hans Hofmann
• Thomas Kausel
• Ellsworth Kelly
• Morris Louis
• Howard Mehring
• Robert Motherwell
• Barnett Newman
• Kenneth Noland
• Jules Olitski
• William Perehudoff
• Mark Rothko
• Clyfford Still
• Frank Stella
• Larry Zox

Jamie Primrose

[edit] See also

• Modern art
• Abstract art
• concret art
• Hard-edge painting
• konkrete kunst
• Lyrical Abstraction
• Washington Color School

[edit] References

• The Columbia Encyclopedia
• Kleiner, Fred S.; and Mamiya, Christin J. , Gardner's Art Through the Ages (2004). Volume II. Wadsworth Publishing. ISBN 0534640915.