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Lot Essay
Painted in a tangled, explosive burst of brushstrokes, The Form of Thing represents Adolph Gottlieb at the height of his artistic dexterity and peak of his fame. Created in 1958, this work incorporates the signature elements present in each of his Burst paintings: an elliptical orb hovering above dynamic, arcing brushstrokes. Such abstract images are the core of Gottlieb's work and aesthetic philosophy. They also encapsulate the two primary visions of the Abstract Expressionist movement during the 1950s and 60s. Reminiscent of Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and the color field painters, Gottlieb applies pure color and bare geometric form to the paper, while simultaneously creating a dance of intertwining, vigorous brushstrokes which mirror the painterly, abstract styles of Yves Kline, Willem de Kooning, and Robert Motherwell.
In the 1950's, the compositional format of the Burst paintings initiated a plethora of critical analysis due to their conceptual nature and enigmatic titles. In The Form of Thing, two abstract circular shapes coexist on the paper, visually in tension but simultaneously drawn together- leaving viewers to ponder the work's meaning. Are the two circular forms meant to evoke the dyads of yin and yang, heaven and hell, or the eternal cycle of creation and destruction? Perhaps the forms mirror the distinctive mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb; a phenomenon still lingering in the minds of post-World War II Americans. A work on paper, the verticality of the composition also conjures up connections to Chinese and Japanese scrolls; the circular forms existing as ciphers for the viewer to interpret. Gottlieb was aware of these associations, and many were suggested by his contemporary critics. Nonetheless, he encouraged ambiguity and a never-ending thought process. He spurned a single conclusion, producing intentionally enigmatic works.
With their amalgamation of the two primary Abstract Expressionist styles, Adolph Gottlieb's images sum up the core American sensibility of the mid-twentieth century. Through abstraction, they evoke pain, joy, triumph, life, and death. Gottlieb stressed that, "different times require different images. Today, when our aspirations have been reduced to a desperate attempt to escape from evil and times are out of joint, our obsessive, subterranean and pictographic images are the expression of the neurosis which is our reality. To my mind certain so-called abstraction is not abstraction at all. On the contrary, it is the realism of our time," (Gottlieb quoted in Adolph Gottlieb: a Survey Exhibition, Gonzalez, 2001, p. 9).
In the 1950's, the compositional format of the Burst paintings initiated a plethora of critical analysis due to their conceptual nature and enigmatic titles. In The Form of Thing, two abstract circular shapes coexist on the paper, visually in tension but simultaneously drawn together- leaving viewers to ponder the work's meaning. Are the two circular forms meant to evoke the dyads of yin and yang, heaven and hell, or the eternal cycle of creation and destruction? Perhaps the forms mirror the distinctive mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb; a phenomenon still lingering in the minds of post-World War II Americans. A work on paper, the verticality of the composition also conjures up connections to Chinese and Japanese scrolls; the circular forms existing as ciphers for the viewer to interpret. Gottlieb was aware of these associations, and many were suggested by his contemporary critics. Nonetheless, he encouraged ambiguity and a never-ending thought process. He spurned a single conclusion, producing intentionally enigmatic works.
With their amalgamation of the two primary Abstract Expressionist styles, Adolph Gottlieb's images sum up the core American sensibility of the mid-twentieth century. Through abstraction, they evoke pain, joy, triumph, life, and death. Gottlieb stressed that, "different times require different images. Today, when our aspirations have been reduced to a desperate attempt to escape from evil and times are out of joint, our obsessive, subterranean and pictographic images are the expression of the neurosis which is our reality. To my mind certain so-called abstraction is not abstraction at all. On the contrary, it is the realism of our time," (Gottlieb quoted in Adolph Gottlieb: a Survey Exhibition, Gonzalez, 2001, p. 9).