The Contemplation of Beauty
Stopping to look at an Agnes Martin painting can feel like stopping to look at wallpaper. Her paintings typically have soft warm bands of color arranged in symmetrical patterns or delicately drawn lines in a grid. But to dismiss her work as simplistic or decorative would be a mistake.
An abstract painting like hers has no recognizable object and no human figure. The painting can feel impersonal because the emotional content isn’t immediately apparent. Yet her paintings can have a deep emotional impact when we let go of the need for the familiar and come to understand her work.
She drew upon her inner experience to create her paintings. She didn’t paint landscapes outdoors. She didn’t use a model. She didn’t arrange fruit on a platter. Instead, she composed her work in the studio while being inspired by an image she saw in the mind’s eye. She said, “The inner eye contemplates all that you have ever seen. And the emotions rise as the inner eye operates.” Her abstract paintings express emotion through a carefully arranged composition in a way that a piece of classical music expresses emotion through its composition without direct representation of an object.
Some of her paintings have titles that refer to objects like “The Bird”, “Spring Field,” or “White Flower.” She didn’t paint the sensation of seeing a white flower, though that was her inspiration; instead, she transformed her inner experience into a new work that expresses the emotion of having seen a white flower and her work represents her contemplation of the flower.
A number of her paintings have a subtle luminescent quality. They appear to glow from the inside rather than reflect light. It’s a difficult effect to achieve in a painting and it speaks to her mastery of the medium. Like Mark Rothko’s color field paintings, the simplicity of form in Martin’s paintings belies the complexity of the image. Taking time to observe the painting and live with its effect can be a moving experience.
[This blog post is an exerpt. You can read the rest of the essay in the book Edible Thistles.]
Additional Resources
Agnes Martin at WikiArt: https://www.wikiart.org/en/agnes-martin
Agnes Martin at SF MOMA: https://www.sfmoma.org/artist/Agnes_Martin/