Homage to the Square
Josef Albers
JOSEF ALBERS, 1957. CASEIN AND OIL ON MASONITE
Four squares of paint, applied to cheap pressed wood, directly from the tube. Josef Alber’s homages lasted for more than 25 years from 1950 to his death in 1976, occupying his mind obsessively. Having been a professor at the Bauhaus, he moved to America and taught at both Yale and Black Mountain College, there honing his framework and establishing a new vernacular of colour and form that would go on to define the 20th century. From the narrowest conceptual frameworks can the most extraordinary perceptual complexity arise. The ‘Homage to the Square’ went on to number more than 2,000 paintings, created sequentially. Singularly fascinated with the interaction of colour, each successive variation on Albers' basic compositional scheme brought new adjustments in hue, tone and intensity. His 1963 book ‘Interaction of Colour’ referred to such experiments as ‘a study of ourselves’. What at first glance would appear to be ‘just’ four squares belies Albers' true depth - that of chromatic harmony.