Lot Essay
"My paintings have neither object nor space nor line nor anything - no forms. They are light, lightness, about merging, about formlessness, breaking down form. You wouldn't think of form by the ocean. You can go in if you don't encounter anything. A world without objects, without interruption, making a work without interruption or obstacle. It is to accept the necessity of the simple direct going into a field of vision as you would cross an empty beach to look at the ocean" (Martin, quoted in Dieter Schwarz (ed.), Agnes Martin Writings, Winterthur, 1992, p. 7).
Untitled #14, is one of Martin's last series of works made after she had moved to Taos in 1993. Comprized of a sequence of wide horizontal bands of radiant light and airy color that seem to fuse into one another and merge to create a cohesive and open aura of light, space and calm, these meditative and classical works are both powerful invocations of the sublime and persuasive expressions of joy.
Martin's work is a deliberate echo of the sublime beauty and selfless happiness that she believed can be found in the experience of gazing at a wide horizon. From the plains of Tulsa to the desert and the ocean, Martin maintained that the infinite expanse of the horizon triggers in the human mind an awareness of a wholeness and a perfection that, although unseen and immaterial, is ultimately the essential and pervasive character of reality. Profoundly inspired by a variety of philosophical sources ranging from the Bible to the writings of Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu, this Taoist in Taos believed that all human beings momentarily sense the presence of this perfection in the world in moments of exaltation such as experienced alone in the quiet contemplation of Nature. It is only at such times, Martin asserted, when self-awareness is quieted by such external stimuli that one forgets one's self, becomes truly humble and is therefore able to appreciate such perfection. Even though such moments are fleeting, she insisted, they point to universal and absolute truths and it was the purpose of her art to reawaken such moments of awareness the viewer.
Like many Romantic artists of the 20th Century, Martin turned to abstraction as her tool of revelation. Through her contact with the work of Rothko, Newman and Reinhardt in the 1950s, Martin had learned to appreciate how geometry could be used in the service of spiritual contemplation. But looking past their essential Romantic art to its classical roots in Ancient Greece, Martin began to rely solely upon a simple geometry in her work to convey a sense of the sublime. "The Greeks made a great discovery," she once observed, "they discovered that in Nature there are no perfect circles or straight lines or equal spaces. Yet they discovered that their interest and inclination was in the perfection of circles and lines, and that in their minds they could see them and that they were then able to make them. They realized that the mind knows what the eye has not seen and that what the mind knows is perfection" (Martin, "What we do not see if we do not see," quoted in Agnes Martin: Writings, Dieter Schwarz (ed.), Winterthur, p.117).
It was this perfection that the pared down grids and lines of Martin's, essentially humble and egoless work, both pointed to and sought to invoke. "My interest is in experience that is wordless and silent," she once wrote, "and in the fact that this experience can be expressed for me in art work which is also wordless and silent" (Martin "The Still and Silent in Art," quoted in Ned Rifkin, "Agnes Martin - The Music of the Spheres," Agnes Martin: the Nineties and Beyond, exh. cat., Houston, 2001, p. 25).
Untitled #14, is one of Martin's last series of works made after she had moved to Taos in 1993. Comprized of a sequence of wide horizontal bands of radiant light and airy color that seem to fuse into one another and merge to create a cohesive and open aura of light, space and calm, these meditative and classical works are both powerful invocations of the sublime and persuasive expressions of joy.
Martin's work is a deliberate echo of the sublime beauty and selfless happiness that she believed can be found in the experience of gazing at a wide horizon. From the plains of Tulsa to the desert and the ocean, Martin maintained that the infinite expanse of the horizon triggers in the human mind an awareness of a wholeness and a perfection that, although unseen and immaterial, is ultimately the essential and pervasive character of reality. Profoundly inspired by a variety of philosophical sources ranging from the Bible to the writings of Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu, this Taoist in Taos believed that all human beings momentarily sense the presence of this perfection in the world in moments of exaltation such as experienced alone in the quiet contemplation of Nature. It is only at such times, Martin asserted, when self-awareness is quieted by such external stimuli that one forgets one's self, becomes truly humble and is therefore able to appreciate such perfection. Even though such moments are fleeting, she insisted, they point to universal and absolute truths and it was the purpose of her art to reawaken such moments of awareness the viewer.
Like many Romantic artists of the 20
It was this perfection that the pared down grids and lines of Martin's, essentially humble and egoless work, both pointed to and sought to invoke. "My interest is in experience that is wordless and silent," she once wrote, "and in the fact that this experience can be expressed for me in art work which is also wordless and silent" (Martin "The Still and Silent in Art," quoted in Ned Rifkin, "Agnes Martin - The Music of the Spheres," Agnes Martin: the Nineties and Beyond, exh. cat., Houston, 2001, p. 25).