Josef Albers
Homage to the Square: Lone
Light
1962
oil
on masonite
45,7
× 45,7 cm
1976.1.1841
(photo
from the website of The Albers Foundation)
Josef Albers had no
theories about color. Also he made this interesting point about color
combinations: “independent of harmony rules, any color ‘goes’ or ‘works’ with
any color, presupposing that their quantities are appropriate”. In his works
and writings, Albers evokes to develop an eye for color. He describes ways to
learn about color through experience – by the method of trial and error in his
famous publication 'Interaction of Color' (1963).
In order to make color to a
concrete factor that we can see, it needs a form, a shape or outline. Albers
made the ingenious discovery that the square as a form could be subservient to
color. He made a basic composition of three or four squares set inside one another,
on masonite. This form gave him the freedom to be concerned only with color; he
named it 'Homage to the Square'. In 1950, at the age of sixty-two, Albers
developed this concept and would continue working on it for twenty-six years,
until his death in 1976. 'Homage to the Square' would become his most important
body of work. Everything I’ve learned about color started by looking at 'Homage
to the Square'.
(In January 2017 'The Art
Section - An Online Journal of Art and Cultural Commentary', published a
special issue on Josef Albers. For this edition I wrote an essay about Albers and
color: 'Color is a Whole World' and here I quoted from this essay)
In 2011 I was artist in
residence at The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Bethany CT, USA. Being so
close I also discovered that his work tells: it is not about me. And this I think,
is one of the important aspects in art: it is not about me.....
José
Heerkens, April 2017
José Heerkens (NL)
L18. Evensong
2016
oil
on linen
150
x 150 cm
(photo:
Willem Kuijpers)
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