Study for Homage to the Square: Starting
Josef Albers
JOSEF ALBERS, 1969. CASEIN AND OIL ON MASONITE
Four squares of paint, directly from the tube. As he had done for the last 19 years, 81 year-old Josef Albers scraped his homages to the equilateral with a palette knife; idealising the shape. 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 until the artist's death in 1976. 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.