拍品專文
The magnificent obsession of his career, the theme of the Homage to the Square occupied the last twenty-five years of Albers's life. He was sixty-two when he arrived at New Haven to teach at Yale University, where he would work and rework these Homages. In the remaining years of his life he would achieve more as a painter, teacher and writer than ever before.
A Westphalian by birth, Albers had taught at the Bauhaus school with fellow faculty members Walter Gropius and Paul Klee. However, after the closing down of the school in 1933 and as a result of the growing Nazi threat, Albers emigrated to America. Because he spent most of his life in the United States, he is occasionally classified and associated with the American minimalist movement of the 1960's. However, his oeuvre is entirely based on European roots. The sizes of his largest canvases are small by American standards and his Homages are not minimalistic works, they are intensely spiritual and magical.
The fundamental idea of the squares was to demonstrate the way solid colours visibly change according to what colour surrounds them. The Homages allowed Albers to present colour in its infinite variation. What appears to be simple and straightforward is in fact a mystery. Albers would lay six to ten layers of white liquitex on a board and then apply the paint straight from the tube spreading it with a knife. He always started the squares at the centre and patiently pushed one colour up against the next without overlapping them. The squares are carefully thought out and placed closer to the lower edge of the canvas as if being pulled by gravity. He did not use tape to separate the colours so they are deliberately slightly asymmetrical. Nicholas Fox Weber writes, "The asymmetry is subtle - the squares are almost centered - so consequently the upward thrust is gradual rather than pronounced. Thus the spiritual element is achieved with a soft voice rather than a loud shout. Like all true spirituality, Albers's is achieved in poignant, muted tones, rather than with evangelical ardor." (Ex. Cat. New York, Guggenheim Museum, Josef Albers, 1988, p. 43).
The squares are not only a spiritual experience but are also an academic method presenting the theory of colour. The present Homage to the Square dates from 1952 and is therefore one of the early experiments where the squares depend on sharp light-dark contrasts. In his "Interaction of Color" Albers describes the resultant effect: "It is the process by which a correctly selected colour lying between two other colours takes on the appearance of both of those colours. When colours properly intersect in a three-square Homage, the colour of the innermost square will appear toward the outer boundary of the second square out. The colour of the outermost square will also appear within the second square, toward its inner boundary." (ibid, p. 44).
A Westphalian by birth, Albers had taught at the Bauhaus school with fellow faculty members Walter Gropius and Paul Klee. However, after the closing down of the school in 1933 and as a result of the growing Nazi threat, Albers emigrated to America. Because he spent most of his life in the United States, he is occasionally classified and associated with the American minimalist movement of the 1960's. However, his oeuvre is entirely based on European roots. The sizes of his largest canvases are small by American standards and his Homages are not minimalistic works, they are intensely spiritual and magical.
The fundamental idea of the squares was to demonstrate the way solid colours visibly change according to what colour surrounds them. The Homages allowed Albers to present colour in its infinite variation. What appears to be simple and straightforward is in fact a mystery. Albers would lay six to ten layers of white liquitex on a board and then apply the paint straight from the tube spreading it with a knife. He always started the squares at the centre and patiently pushed one colour up against the next without overlapping them. The squares are carefully thought out and placed closer to the lower edge of the canvas as if being pulled by gravity. He did not use tape to separate the colours so they are deliberately slightly asymmetrical. Nicholas Fox Weber writes, "The asymmetry is subtle - the squares are almost centered - so consequently the upward thrust is gradual rather than pronounced. Thus the spiritual element is achieved with a soft voice rather than a loud shout. Like all true spirituality, Albers's is achieved in poignant, muted tones, rather than with evangelical ardor." (Ex. Cat. New York, Guggenheim Museum, Josef Albers, 1988, p. 43).
The squares are not only a spiritual experience but are also an academic method presenting the theory of colour. The present Homage to the Square dates from 1952 and is therefore one of the early experiments where the squares depend on sharp light-dark contrasts. In his "Interaction of Color" Albers describes the resultant effect: "It is the process by which a correctly selected colour lying between two other colours takes on the appearance of both of those colours. When colours properly intersect in a three-square Homage, the colour of the innermost square will appear toward the outer boundary of the second square out. The colour of the outermost square will also appear within the second square, toward its inner boundary." (ibid, p. 44).