Red Painting

Ad Reinhardt is considered among the most important proponents of American abstract painting. Having produced mainly works in the style of Abstract Expression in the 1940s, he began around 1950 to limit his palette and to paint geometrically composed pictures in shades of red or blue. Our rectangular <k>Red Painting<k> from 1953 was painted in the year when Reinhardt made his last pictures in strong colors and abandoned principles of asymmetry and irregularity in painting. Soon after this, the artist further reduced his range of colors and embarked on the body of work known as the “Black Paintings,” on which he was to work until his death in 1967. The composition of <k>Red Painting<k> is dominated by a broad horizontal bar which overlays a much thinner vertical element. This arrangement, as well as the use of various strong shades of red, causes a flickering between fore- and background. If one looks at the picture for a long time, one sees a colored space that seems to vibrate. In its cruciform clarity, <k>Red Painting<k> anticipates the icon-like stringency which Reinhardt was to take to extremes in the “Black Paintings".