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Lot Essay
When you really understand that each color is changed by a changed environment, you eventually find that you have learned about life as well as about color.(J. Albers, Josef Albers: The American Years, Washington 1965, p. 28).
Completed the same year Josef Albers’ seminal writings on color theory, Interaction of Color, was published, Homage to the Square: Decided, exemplifies the artist’s chromatic investigations. Albers dedicated over a quarter-of-a-century to the Homage to the Square series perhaps the most important exploration of color of the twentieth century, making him one of the most influential artists of his time. Albers wrote Interaction of Color as a guide and testament to his complex color theory for artists and educators like himself. The Homages became physical manifestations for his theories and optical investigations, often making meticulous lists on the backs of each painting of the colors utilized. He played with the chromatic spectrum to distort ones perception of the spatial relationships within these otherwise simple compositions. Albers stated of his paintings and their perceptions, “Such action, reaction, interaction—or interdependence—is sought in order to make obvious how colors influence and change each other: that the same color for instance –with different grounds or neighbors looks different….Such color deceptions prove that we see color almost never unrelated to each other…color is changing continually…Thus, character and feeling alter from painting to painting without any additional “hand writing” (J. Albers, Color, in G.Alviani (ed.), Josef Albers, Milan, 1988, pp. 104-105).
The flatly painted compositions of simple geometric forms begin to shift and change as Albers’ colors manipulate the viewer’s eye. Homage to the Square: Decided is composed of three concentric squares. The smallest a vibrant turquoise encased inside a middle bright emerald green square. Both are surrounded by a neutral gray that engulfs the remainder of the composition. In the painting, the bright central squares give the illusion they protrude from the surface as you focus on these interior shapes, only to fall back when ones eyes shift to the dense outer gray square that encloses the two smaller. Homage to the Square: Decided shares a similar color palette to an earlier work, Homage to the Square: Apparition, (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum). While Homage to the Square: Decided contains only three squares, this 1959 example contains four to include an additional bright yellow. Albers shows his mastery over color as we see practically the same colors take on an entirely different tone and space due to both the manner in which he arranged them and the added color. Homage to the Square: Decided and Homage to the Square: Apparition are both outstanding large-scale examples from the series in the second largest format employed. Beginning at the center, Albers paints each square by applying oil paint directly on to the rough side of the Masonite surface. The substrate was laid flat on a table as he painted and the artist free handed the near perfect edges of the shapes. The paintings were created with simple compositions and processes, yet the finished paintings contain such depth and beg for contemplation. Jean Arp once wrote of this quality, “They contain simple, great statements such as: I’m standing here. I’m resting here. I’m in the world and on earth. I’m in no hurry to move on. While Mark Rothko sought transcendence, Albers looked for fulfilment here on earth” (H. Arp, quoted in W. Schmied, ‘Fifteen Notes on Josef Albers’, in Josef Albers, exh. cat., The Mayor Gallery, London, 1989, pp. 9-10).
Completed the same year Josef Albers’ seminal writings on color theory, Interaction of Color, was published, Homage to the Square: Decided, exemplifies the artist’s chromatic investigations. Albers dedicated over a quarter-of-a-century to the Homage to the Square series perhaps the most important exploration of color of the twentieth century, making him one of the most influential artists of his time. Albers wrote Interaction of Color as a guide and testament to his complex color theory for artists and educators like himself. The Homages became physical manifestations for his theories and optical investigations, often making meticulous lists on the backs of each painting of the colors utilized. He played with the chromatic spectrum to distort ones perception of the spatial relationships within these otherwise simple compositions. Albers stated of his paintings and their perceptions, “Such action, reaction, interaction—or interdependence—is sought in order to make obvious how colors influence and change each other: that the same color for instance –with different grounds or neighbors looks different….Such color deceptions prove that we see color almost never unrelated to each other…color is changing continually…Thus, character and feeling alter from painting to painting without any additional “hand writing” (J. Albers, Color, in G.Alviani (ed.), Josef Albers, Milan, 1988, pp. 104-105).
The flatly painted compositions of simple geometric forms begin to shift and change as Albers’ colors manipulate the viewer’s eye. Homage to the Square: Decided is composed of three concentric squares. The smallest a vibrant turquoise encased inside a middle bright emerald green square. Both are surrounded by a neutral gray that engulfs the remainder of the composition. In the painting, the bright central squares give the illusion they protrude from the surface as you focus on these interior shapes, only to fall back when ones eyes shift to the dense outer gray square that encloses the two smaller. Homage to the Square: Decided shares a similar color palette to an earlier work, Homage to the Square: Apparition, (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum). While Homage to the Square: Decided contains only three squares, this 1959 example contains four to include an additional bright yellow. Albers shows his mastery over color as we see practically the same colors take on an entirely different tone and space due to both the manner in which he arranged them and the added color. Homage to the Square: Decided and Homage to the Square: Apparition are both outstanding large-scale examples from the series in the second largest format employed. Beginning at the center, Albers paints each square by applying oil paint directly on to the rough side of the Masonite surface. The substrate was laid flat on a table as he painted and the artist free handed the near perfect edges of the shapes. The paintings were created with simple compositions and processes, yet the finished paintings contain such depth and beg for contemplation. Jean Arp once wrote of this quality, “They contain simple, great statements such as: I’m standing here. I’m resting here. I’m in the world and on earth. I’m in no hurry to move on. While Mark Rothko sought transcendence, Albers looked for fulfilment here on earth” (H. Arp, quoted in W. Schmied, ‘Fifteen Notes on Josef Albers’, in Josef Albers, exh. cat., The Mayor Gallery, London, 1989, pp. 9-10).