Kenneth Noland: A Reactionary Artist
Kenneth Noland reacted against the existing gestural standard of Abstract Expressionist painting in favor of minimalist compositions with color as the primary subject. His non-representational pieces relied on color optics and directionality rather than emotions. He borrowed notions of simplistic repetition and color theory from Josef Albers. In addition, he evolved Helen Frankenthaler’s application of color to an unprimed canvas. Finally, he works in parallel with Frank Stella to blur the line between sculpture and painting by redefining the canvas’ boundaries. Kenneth Noland’s philosophies and applications of color, form and unity developed as reactions to his impression of Josef Albers, Helen Frankenthaler, and Frank Stella during the course of the 1960s.
In order to understand Noland’s application of color, it is important to understand Josef Albers theories taught during Noland’s education at Black Mountain College. Albers brought the philosophy of the Bauhaus to American artists, providing the conceptual foundation for Color Field Painting. Albers theories were rooted in systemization, compositional structure, and active experimentation. In Albers’ book Interaction of Color (1963) he separated the way color is seen into two distinct categories: factual and actual. According to Anoka Faruqee, an Associate Professor of Painting/Printmaking at Yale University, factual color is “how we name, measure or locate color; what we know color to be in isolation” while actual color is how it “exists in a context as inevitably does in the world as we experience it” (Faruqee). Albers dogma encouraged his students to look at the way color reacts to its surroundings, rather than isolating it as a known entity. In this way he encouraged optical manipulation in order to force colors to recede, vibrate, or assume new hues that appear different from their scientific make-up. This philosophy defied the way color theory had been practiced traditionally in art, science, and industry, granting artists a more elastic interpretation of color.
Josef Albers applied his own theory to his practice, most notably in his Homage to the Square series begun in 1950. This process of working in series impacted the production of work by Noland, who soon adapted radiating, geometric compositions, rather than developing individual, disparate works. By working in this manner, Noland was able to be more experimental and inutivie with his color selection, because the composition was already dictated. This new method of abstraction depended upon removing the artwork from external context, emphasizing “a system of non-objective forms and colors which were no longer a vehicle of factual statement but the expression of a psychic situation” (Gomringer 9). Reacting to the Abstract Expressionists, the new philosophy encouraged by Albers enabled Noland to embrace repetition with variation as ritualistic. In his first series of work, Circles, Noland describes his own concentric motif as a “self canceling structure” where he could eliminate structural decisions and focus on the arbitrariness of color (Greene 5). The simplified forms remove any associations of dimensionality, allowing the flat fields to occupy space on the same level. These series show Noland’s initial infatuation with creating both harmony and tension through color relationships as interpreted by Albers.
The optical approach to color that was shared by Noland and Albers could be seen in Albers’ Variant VIII, from Ten Variants, 1966 and Noland’s Untitled, 1966. Both minimal color field paintings use flat geometric fields of varying orange, pink, and purple to build the compositions. Albers created complex color relationships, creating optical differences between hues buy placing them within and next to each other. In almost a puzzle-like manner, the work compares the relationships of each color to another: gold inside lilac emerges forward, while gold next to yellow recedes. In contrast, Noland’s work limited each color to be addressed only in relation to the color next to it. Albers visual success was due to the medium, screen printing, where he could guarantee that the six-colors were printed exactly the same despite the optical discrepancies. Noland, similarly, uses incredible flat fields of color, but due to the differences in contrast on either side of each band, the optical illusion of a gradient is created. While working in a reductive and minimalistic style, both Albers and Noland series of works concluded that there are infinite possibilities for the same color to be perceived because of its dependence upon its surroundings.
Additionally, Noland incorporated this element of experimentation and color theory in Trans Shift, 1964. Part of his Chevron Series, the work relied on four bands of color in varying tones of blue and green on a triangular canvas. The colors seem to glow and vibrate against each other, creating moments of tension and fragmentation. Applied in smooth, even, mechanical fills, the bands relied on each other to champion the dynamic composition already established by the sense of direction. The application of color to the canvas enhanced the unity of the composition. The paint stained the canvas and acted as a unified layer, rather than two separate entities. Critic Clement Greenberg asserted “color counts by its clarity and its energy; it is not there to be carried by the design and drawing; it does the carringin itself” (Greene 2). In this way color was the true subject of the work, a principle conceived by Albers and applied by Noland. Albers color theory guided the application of color within Noland’s body of work, allowing him to focus on the optical relationships of color to create dynamic compositions rather than complex expressions.
During his time at Black Mountain College, Kenneth Noland’s was also exposed to the work of Helen Frankenthaler which had a direct influence on his application and process of painting. Frankenthaler’s work evolved as a reaction to the thick oil paintings of the Abstract Expressionists, who embraced the opaque nature of oil and industrial paint. Both Pollock and de Kooning thrived on gestural work that carried out the artist own personal narrative and emotions. Frankenthaler argued that art should be able to appear without the sign of the artist, so she developed a style of working where the paint was thinned and then poured onto the canvas, where it left graceful, organic fields of color. Frankenthaler’s stain technique made it difficult to “discern whether the flow of paint determined the image or if Frankenthaler’s forceful personality dictated the movement of the pigment, independently of her hand” (101 Wilkin). Her philosophy was to remove the hand of the artist to create autonomic works that were optical sensory experiences, not moments of discovery of process, a core principle of the Color Field painters. This notion influenced Noland’s the relationship between medium and canvas, as he began to emulate her technique in a more controlled manner.
Noland sought to act on the philosophy of unity within a composition through a synthesis of paint and canvas, or figure and ground. In this manner, the canvas held equal importance to each color; rather than being built-up on top of one another, the paint and the canvas exist on the same plane. Frankenthaler’s technique of liquefying paint was apparent in Quid, 1960, where Noland embraced the relationship between newly acquired acrylic paint and unprimed canvas duck. In the work his forms, while concentric, are loose and transparent, the color fields run up against each other. The forms appear to be puddled, created without the guides of a brush, similar to the forms poured in Frankenthaler’s The Bay, 1963. Both present forms that seem to melt and disperse on their own, independent of an artist hand. The rings are soft and organic and natural duck canvas treated as its own field of color. Noland sought a symmetrical, contained composition rather than the organic, biomorphic flow. Despite the technical differences in composition, both works “move towards a physical openness of design, or toward linear clarity”, creating work that was still just as gestural and fluid as Abstract Expressionism, but without overworking of the medium (Greenberg 59). As his work evolved, Noland maintained the importance of incorporating the canvas as part of the compositional space, while moving toward a more stable, geometric treatment of space to focus on color relationships.
Frankenthaler also imparted on Noland the philosophy of a “one shot painting”, where the work of art was to be considered complete after one instance of working on it. It was fast and immediate, but still allowed room for experimentation. Because Noland planned his compositions in advance given the series he was developing at the time, he was able to without drawing, allowing the medium and color to intuitively guide his decisions (De Antonio). In Sunrise, 1960, Kenneth Noland applies the “one-shot painting” philosophy to his Circle series. Working with low viscosity paint on unprimed canvases, some instances of the hand of the painter were left in the uneven laying of color in the segments as well as the gestural final ring that breaks the convention of the composition. Within this work Noland began his color study by borrowing from Albers and Frankenthaler so that the “painting is edited of everything except hue, and this is applied preferably by pouring or staining so as to avoid the kind of hand marks that could turn into drawing” (Alloway 476). Rather than allowing colors to run into each other, he segments each ring, using the unprimed canvas as an additional color to interact with the painted forms. Within these compositions Kenneth Noland approached the medium in his own manner, developing a balance between action and serenity through the stained canvas technique.
Furthering the concept of compositional unity, Noland also sought to extend the composition outward into the shape of the canvas. This concept parallels the work of Frank Stella, who sought to evolve the notion of an all-over painting toward one that embraced and enforced the frame of reference. In his Chevron series, Noland began to explore the relationship of color, directionality, and shape container. Using forms that follow the shape of the canvas, and vice versa, he developed a new system of painting, where the work crosses into sculptural territory. The canvas is no longer a flat plane that had work layered upon, but instead an additional compositional element for the forms to interact with. This begins to blur the lines between sculpture and painting, bringing in structural and directional elements to turn the painting itself into a gesture on a dimensional level (Frank Stella: Creating Canvases in New Shapes). Stella’s adherence to compositional unity and atypical structures influenced Noland’s modified canvas shapes.
Noland incorporated Stella’s prerogative of shaped canvases in the mid-1960s, primarily with his Chevron and Diamond series. In A-New,1967, Noland built non-traditional canvas to reiterate the internal composition, where the “canvases somehow achieve a precarious equilibrium, despite their aggressive, quirky shaping, through tense relationships of wedges of color slicing across the expanse of narrow bands clinging to the edges”(Wilken). The idea of motion and tension is heightened by Noland’s incorporation of non-traditional forms. The three color bands in seem to be eternally stretching and distorting to a point where the composition looks as though it has been warped in space. Similar to Stella, Noland developed the interior composition and exterior forms so that one could not exist without the other. In this sense the work becomes sculptural rather than the historical perception of painting as flat.
After his Diamond series, Kenneth Noland continued to push perception of color by developing a new series of work featuring long horizontal canvases with repeating linear elements. He redefined the proportions of the canvases to enhance the color theory he was developing. Stella’s linearity increased the directionality of the composition, as seen in Empress of India, 1965, while Noland’s linearity simplified as seen in Little Rouges, 1968 (Fig. 8 and 9). Even the naming conventions reveal the differences in approach presented by each artist, but both still capture a sense of urgency, tension, and unity through color relationships. Both works used thin white lines to reinforce the exterior shape of the canvas, reaffirming the importance of the art’s boundaries. While Stella works in even, proportional shapes that feel as though they are pieced together, Noland continued to work in the “one-shot painting” style, evidenced by his application of different proportions of color fields. They both created works through which pictorial prominence came from materiality, where it was “possible to eliminate having to make reference to all other subject matter considerations, all allusions beyond the physical reality of the picture” (Wilken). Working with color fields as the subject matter enabled the two to embrace and experiment with compositional unity through non-conventional canvas shapes.
Kenneth Noland’s expansive iterations of color, form, and proportion developed as a reaction to the Abstract Expressionist from the decade before him, as well has his teachers and contemporaries in the 1960s. By working in series, a notion introduced by Albers, his paradigm was refined through experimentation and repetition without hesitation. In addition, Noland embraced the canvas as an additional field of space on which to lay flat color following exposure to Helen Frankenthaler’s stain paintings. Finally, Stella’s development of sculptural canvases with minimalist tendencies paralleled Noland to pursuit of an complete unity of composition. All three artist sought directness and complexity through simple forms, creating paintings that were purely optical experiences, which carried into Kenneth Noland’s own artistic philosophy and body of work in the 1960s.
Alloway, Lawrence. “Art.” Nation, vol. 214, no. 15, 10 Apr. 1972, pp. 476–477. EBSCOhost, proxy.library.kent.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip&db=vth&AN=12289514&site=eds-live&scope=site.
De Antonio, Emile, director. Painters Painting. YouTube, YouTube, 10 Nov. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCnvrNfrUGg
Faruqee, Anoka. YouTube, YouTube, 29 Oct. 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YpZX0Xj9-Y
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Greenberg, Clement. Post Painterly Abstraction: an Exhib. Organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, April 23-June 7, 1964; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, July 13-Aug. 16, 1964; The Art Gallery of Toronto, Toronto, Nov. 20-Dec. 20, 1964. 1964.
Greene, Alison de Lima. Kenneth Noland: the Nature of Color. Museum of Fine Arts, 2004.
Panero, James. “Gallery Chronicle.” New Criterion, no. 5, 2018, p. 52. EBSCOhost, proxy.library.kent.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip&db=edsglr&AN=edsgcl.522759319&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Wilken, Karen. “Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011).” American Art, no. 3, 2012, p. 100. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1086/669225.
