.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné being prepared by the Anni and Josef Albers Foundation.
To Design
To design is
to plan and organize,
to order, to relate
and to control
In short it embraces
all means opposing
disorder and accident
Therefore it signifies
a human need
and qualifies man's
thinking and doing
-Josef Albers, 1961
Josef Albers devoted well over two decades of his career to his celebrated series Homage to the Square. His paintings, at first glance, appear simplistic if not formulaic. Closer inspection of works like Homage to the Square: Rare Divergence, however, reveal these paintings to be profound in their exploration of color theory, planar manipulation and pure beauty. Albers has said of his paintings, "they move forth and back, in and out, and grow up and down and near and far, as well as enlarged and diminished. All this, to proclaim color autonomy as a means of plastic organization" (J. WiBmann, "Josef Albers' Homages to the Square as the Unity of Rationality and Sensitivity," Josef Albers, London, 1989, p. 21). Albers paintings' formal compositions are so similar because there is no limit to the variations that can be achieved, each resulting in a completely different result.
Though Albers titled his paintings Homage to the Square his employment of the square is no more than a vehicle to explore colors, how they relate to each other and, specifically, how that affects the perception of those colors. Homage to the Square: Rare Divergence contrasts two colors of grey with two colors of green. As the title implies, the composition differs slightly from Albers' usual four square format; the corners of the external squares are mitered, to give dimension to the work as if the colored planes are beveled and shadowed. The movement of Albers paintings such as this, created by the contrasting colors, is remarkable in that it fundamentally undermines the obdurate form of the square. What is usually viewed as a static form takes on an elasticity and dynamism that almost obscures the fact that Albers' paintings are made up of squares.
To Design
To design is
to plan and organize,
to order, to relate
and to control
In short it embraces
all means opposing
disorder and accident
Therefore it signifies
a human need
and qualifies man's
thinking and doing
-Josef Albers, 1961
Josef Albers devoted well over two decades of his career to his celebrated series Homage to the Square. His paintings, at first glance, appear simplistic if not formulaic. Closer inspection of works like Homage to the Square: Rare Divergence, however, reveal these paintings to be profound in their exploration of color theory, planar manipulation and pure beauty. Albers has said of his paintings, "they move forth and back, in and out, and grow up and down and near and far, as well as enlarged and diminished. All this, to proclaim color autonomy as a means of plastic organization" (J. WiBmann, "Josef Albers' Homages to the Square as the Unity of Rationality and Sensitivity," Josef Albers, London, 1989, p. 21). Albers paintings' formal compositions are so similar because there is no limit to the variations that can be achieved, each resulting in a completely different result.
Though Albers titled his paintings Homage to the Square his employment of the square is no more than a vehicle to explore colors, how they relate to each other and, specifically, how that affects the perception of those colors. Homage to the Square: Rare Divergence contrasts two colors of grey with two colors of green. As the title implies, the composition differs slightly from Albers' usual four square format; the corners of the external squares are mitered, to give dimension to the work as if the colored planes are beveled and shadowed. The movement of Albers paintings such as this, created by the contrasting colors, is remarkable in that it fundamentally undermines the obdurate form of the square. What is usually viewed as a static form takes on an elasticity and dynamism that almost obscures the fact that Albers' paintings are made up of squares.