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拍品專文
'Franz Kline's white and black pictures performed that miracle which is a constant in all major art: he changed the look of the environment and history. His style has that quality which rips the filters of Style from our eye.' (T.B. Hess, ArtNews, Vol 61, New York, Summer 1962, reproduced in Franz Kline 1910-1962, exh.cat. Turin 2004, p. 333)
There is perhaps no finer pictorial expression of the dramatic period of liberation that took place in New York in the 1950s than the black-and-white paintings Franz Kline produced between 1950 and 1961 championed as the ultimate examples of 'Action Painting'.
Working energetically in a pattern of dynamic contrasts where black forms were applied over the base white forms were then forged back into and over the black in a kind of formal struggle of opposites. Kline's work was not at all calligraphic in this respect therefore, rather, it was an intuitive constructive process in which, through the very act of making the work, a dialogue between two opposing and materialized forces combined to forge a dynamic and often surprising solution. 'When I paint a picture, I don't know every line in advance, but I know in general what I'm about,' he said. 'I put something here and here, and here and here, and then I pull it all together' (F. Kline, quoted in H.F. Gaugh, Franz Kline, exh.cat., Cincinnati Art Museum, 1985, pp. 16 and 77).
What was central to his painting's progress and key to its success was the vigorous spontaneity and immediacy of his mark-making. Every single brushstroke had to be applied not only with vigour and directness but also with complete faith and conviction in what he was doing. As Kline, with fond reference to his friend Pollock, asserted in this respect, 'Jackson always knew that if you meant it enough when you did it, it will mean that much' (F. Kline, quoted in T.B. Hess, p. 78).
Despite Kline's insistence that his inspiration came from 'somewhere else,' his black-and-white abstractions are in fact powerfully evocative of the cultural atmosphere and locale in 1950s New York within which they were made. There is, for example, an almost film noir-like character to many of these works that extends well beyond the simplicity of their black-and-white drama to evoke what David Anfam has described as 'a peculiar American toughness' (D. Anfam, 'Franz Kline: Janus of Abstract Expressionism', in: C. Christov-Bakargiev (ed.), Franz Kline 1910-62, exh.cat. Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Turin 2004, p. 41).
It is, in the end, this element of enigma and indefinability in these great works that bestows them with their enduring power, authority and ability to fascinate the viewer. Using an analogy to a Jazz musician, Kline answered a spectator who asked him to explain the meaning of his paintings by saying: 'I'll answer you the same way Louis Armstrong does when they ask him what it means when he blows his trumpet. Louie says, "Brother, if you don't get it, there is no way I can tell you"' (F. Kline, quoted in H.F. Gaugh, p. 13).
There is perhaps no finer pictorial expression of the dramatic period of liberation that took place in New York in the 1950s than the black-and-white paintings Franz Kline produced between 1950 and 1961 championed as the ultimate examples of 'Action Painting'.
Working energetically in a pattern of dynamic contrasts where black forms were applied over the base white forms were then forged back into and over the black in a kind of formal struggle of opposites. Kline's work was not at all calligraphic in this respect therefore, rather, it was an intuitive constructive process in which, through the very act of making the work, a dialogue between two opposing and materialized forces combined to forge a dynamic and often surprising solution. 'When I paint a picture, I don't know every line in advance, but I know in general what I'm about,' he said. 'I put something here and here, and here and here, and then I pull it all together' (F. Kline, quoted in H.F. Gaugh, Franz Kline, exh.cat., Cincinnati Art Museum, 1985, pp. 16 and 77).
What was central to his painting's progress and key to its success was the vigorous spontaneity and immediacy of his mark-making. Every single brushstroke had to be applied not only with vigour and directness but also with complete faith and conviction in what he was doing. As Kline, with fond reference to his friend Pollock, asserted in this respect, 'Jackson always knew that if you meant it enough when you did it, it will mean that much' (F. Kline, quoted in T.B. Hess, p. 78).
Despite Kline's insistence that his inspiration came from 'somewhere else,' his black-and-white abstractions are in fact powerfully evocative of the cultural atmosphere and locale in 1950s New York within which they were made. There is, for example, an almost film noir-like character to many of these works that extends well beyond the simplicity of their black-and-white drama to evoke what David Anfam has described as 'a peculiar American toughness' (D. Anfam, 'Franz Kline: Janus of Abstract Expressionism', in: C. Christov-Bakargiev (ed.), Franz Kline 1910-62, exh.cat. Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Turin 2004, p. 41).
It is, in the end, this element of enigma and indefinability in these great works that bestows them with their enduring power, authority and ability to fascinate the viewer. Using an analogy to a Jazz musician, Kline answered a spectator who asked him to explain the meaning of his paintings by saying: 'I'll answer you the same way Louis Armstrong does when they ask him what it means when he blows his trumpet. Louie says, "Brother, if you don't get it, there is no way I can tell you"' (F. Kline, quoted in H.F. Gaugh, p. 13).