Le Neveu de Rameau
Artist/Maker
Frank Stella
(United States, b. 1936)
Date1974
Mediumacrylic on canvas
DimensionsOverall: 135 x 135 in. (342.9 x 342.9 cm)
ClassificationsVisual Works
Credit LineGift of Martin Z. Margulies
Terms
Object number85.0191
DescriptionStella's rejection of the expressive brushwork and rich palette of the Abstract Expressionists who preceded him is evident in this work from the series entitled Diderot, after the French encyclopedist and critic. In these huge geometric variations on his earlier, smaller, Concentric Squares, Stella favored a neutral, controlled imagery that derives its composition and content from the shape of the canvas. The painting owes its visual excitement to the conflict between the extravagance of its size and the simplicity of the concentric bands of color, which reflect the depth of the stretcher. The artist has created a vigorous dialogue, really a visual contradiction, between the flatness and thickness of the individual widths of color. Stella repeatedly used the pictorial rectangle, appreciating it for what he considered its consistent power and strength. He has indicated that it set a rigorous standard against which he measured his later, more painterly work.Visual Description
This
11 foot by 11 foot square acrylic painting features a series of concentric
squares in oranges, reds, greens, and blues, with a small orange square at its
center. The square bands of color resemble thin frames nestled one inside the
other, receding toward the small orange square at the center. The precisely
aligned corners of the squares, the arrangement of colors (warm colors at the
edges, dark near the middle, and bright at the center), and the small square at
the core, combine to create a
tunnel effect or illusion.
On View
On viewCollections
