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拍品专文
Josef Albers devoted the last twenty-six years of his life to his series Homage to the Square. Working in 7 different sizes and four formats, Quiet Question, is the more rare second largest size and one of the three square formats. Using thinly applied opaque yellow, grey and white, Albers gives yet another response to the unanswerable question that would preoccupy him in his work, writings and teaching for most of his life: the relativity of colour.
Through the weightless and timeless shape that is the square, Albers depicted hundreds of combinations of colours. "Colour, in my opinion, behaves like man - in two distinct ways: first in self realization and then in the realization of relationships with others… In other words we must combine both being as individual and being a member of society" (The Artist's Voice, Katharine Kuh. 1962. Pp.11-12) So in his "Homage to the Square" works, framed by the white line around the format of squares we enter into the private world of Albers, - a world and society of interdependent colors. As each interacts, these inert squares gain motion, become active as the size, colour and hue affects their weight and therefore their perspective.
Albers, a teacher in the United States for many years believed that good teaching was more a matter of asking the right questions than of giving the correct answers and he taught his students through systematic studies to become aware of the relativity of colour. Wieland Schmied has written that Albers' work is concerned with questioning, "Where does color originate: in the laboratory, on the canvas, in the eye or in our consciousness? What effect is colour supposed to achieve? Where? Where is it at home? (Wieland Schmied, Josef Albers,Galerie Karstengreve, Koln, 1989. pp.8-10.) "The nomenclature of color is most inadequate." Albers has said, "Though there are innumerable colors - shades and tones - in daily vocabulary, there are only about 30 color names." (Josef Albers on Colour). In Homage to the Square - Quiet Question, Albers has posed a specific question, for he has intentionally marked it at the back of the canvas and has used the same colour, with the same name from two different companies. The name is more specific than that which exists in our daily vocabulary "Naples Yellow" yet one is made by Permanent Pigment and the other by Rembrandt. This Naples Yellow has the same specific laboratory name yet is made into a different colour by two expert colour manufacturers. The "quiet question" Albers poses in this unique work leads us to the realisation that all colour is relative and alive and exists beyond man's ability to categorize and label it.
Through the weightless and timeless shape that is the square, Albers depicted hundreds of combinations of colours. "Colour, in my opinion, behaves like man - in two distinct ways: first in self realization and then in the realization of relationships with others… In other words we must combine both being as individual and being a member of society" (The Artist's Voice, Katharine Kuh. 1962. Pp.11-12) So in his "Homage to the Square" works, framed by the white line around the format of squares we enter into the private world of Albers, - a world and society of interdependent colors. As each interacts, these inert squares gain motion, become active as the size, colour and hue affects their weight and therefore their perspective.
Albers, a teacher in the United States for many years believed that good teaching was more a matter of asking the right questions than of giving the correct answers and he taught his students through systematic studies to become aware of the relativity of colour. Wieland Schmied has written that Albers' work is concerned with questioning, "Where does color originate: in the laboratory, on the canvas, in the eye or in our consciousness? What effect is colour supposed to achieve? Where? Where is it at home? (Wieland Schmied, Josef Albers,Galerie Karstengreve, Koln, 1989. pp.8-10.) "The nomenclature of color is most inadequate." Albers has said, "Though there are innumerable colors - shades and tones - in daily vocabulary, there are only about 30 color names." (Josef Albers on Colour). In Homage to the Square - Quiet Question, Albers has posed a specific question, for he has intentionally marked it at the back of the canvas and has used the same colour, with the same name from two different companies. The name is more specific than that which exists in our daily vocabulary "Naples Yellow" yet one is made by Permanent Pigment and the other by Rembrandt. This Naples Yellow has the same specific laboratory name yet is made into a different colour by two expert colour manufacturers. The "quiet question" Albers poses in this unique work leads us to the realisation that all colour is relative and alive and exists beyond man's ability to categorize and label it.