The Disorientation of the Straight Line

Barnett Newman, 1996

“They are moved at once by a will to change - to transform both themselves and their world - and by a terror of disorientation and disintegration, of life falling apart. They all know the thrill and the dread of a world in which all that is solid melts into air. (1)

I intend to introduce this discussion with an analysis of Berman's statement, which will subsequently prove to construct the parameters for the rest of this text. The quotation itself raises many abstract questions, for example, who are 'they'? What is meant by 'a will to change?' or 'all that is solid melts into air?' As if deliberately ambiguous, the statement therefore becomes ripe for studied interrogation.

The overall sense of the quotation seems to be concerned with alluding to a method of transcendence, of the surpassing of an (or the) existing state of something. Indeed, this is exactly the process described in the transformation from solid, via liquid, to gas. This borrowing from a scientific vocabulary may therefore prove to be helpful in providing a context for examining the rest of the statement. In a sense, 'the solid' exists as something which can be known - visible, tactile, in most respects, an object. In contrast to this, air is much more intangible, the atoms literally becoming more randomly animated, freeing themselves of the grid structure of solids completely. It's invisible, something pseudo-universal, and of course, vital for human survival. The move or change from one state to another is literally a dissolution of matter (usually involving heat) into something else, as if one state is encapsulating another.

'They' therefore, through a desire to affect this change, could be seen as scientists, employing specific knowledge to be able to provide the necessary quota of energy to produce the change.

One parallel often made with the scientist, particularly within the Modernist tradition, is the figure of the artist, themselves often affecting a chemical change of matter through the transformation of their medium. This might also be related to a metaphorical transformation of self, the medium adopting the artist's personal traits through its specific handling. If we are therefore to apply this context to the remainder of Berman's statement, it is possible to propose one avenue of interpretation.

I would suggest that the disorientation and disintegration of life felt by artists wishing to affect this change could be no more acutely described than by the experience of the two World Wars. Therefore, this can approximately be taken to denote the forty period of between 1910 and 1950.

Art practice has in a way, always alluded to some form of escapism, so it is no real surprise to discover that many artists attempted ways in which to remove themselves from wartime activities (many of course, were also involved and victims of them). The frequently voiced avant-garde aspiration that the only proposable method of halting world disorder was through the ultimate dissolution of art into life (or the aestheticization of life) therefore neatly dovetails Berman's argument. The solid might be proposed as the art object itself, dissolving, or evaporating into air which might be seen as the wider social context of the work's production. That these artists confronting these issues all know the thrill and the dread of their actions merely underlines the supposed faith in the power of artistic practice in perhaps being able to affect social change.

This approach, of course, is resolutely idealist, although it is an interesting notion as to just how abstract art might be advanced as a relevant response to social as well as aesthetic demands, and will therefore form the backbone of this discussion.

“A work of art is gratuitous. It is not essentially the answer to a question or the solution to a presented problem ... Action in response to any moral problem is not gratuitous; it is imposed; that there should be some response is absolutely necessary. One cannot pass by a situation; one must pass through it in one way or another. (2)

The process of abstraction itself, aptly described by Berman's statement (literally a formalist disintegration which confronts the spectator with the aesthetically somewhat unfamiliar) greatly expanded during the forty year period described previously. What essentially was being alluded to was the expression of some form of universal idea or absolute through a formal organisation. This is more aptly described by, or as, an attempt to transcribe an aesthetic equilibrium into a social parallel. It is a widely held notion amongst these artists that the aesthetic had to take precedence over the social, and this equilibrium was discussed through a process of gradual formal reduction. Therefore, the political context and the subsequent production of abstract art may in many ways have been linked. The notion of transcending world disorder (to depicting a state not concerned with the human world) was arguably no better explored in these forty years than in the work of Dutchman Piet Mondrian and American Barnett Newman. Their works may be seen as attempts at tapping an underlying social harmony, absolutes amid chaotic gulfs. This, of course, was one of the fundamental premises of both the Theosophy inspired De Stijl group, and also so-called Field painters. The ideal is therefore proposed as something removed from the mere representational (an abstract notion in itself), but would, in creating this unknown arena, manifest itself as aesthetic beauty.

“To us, art is an adventure into an unknown world, which can be explored only by those willing to take the risks.

This world of the imagination is fancy-free and violently opposed to common sense. It is our function as artists to make the spectator see the world our way - not his way.

We favor the simple expression of the complex thought.

We are for large shape because it has the impact of the unequivocal. We wish to reassert the picture plane.

We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth. (3)

In the context of both Mondrian and Newman's work, the straight, or most 'tensed' line (curves always tend to resolve themselves as straight) attempts to express, as purely as possible, strength and vastness. Thus, in being advanced as 'salvation' from global chaos, we are therefore confronted with somewhat of a paradox. How useful can purely abstract art be? Is it effective in reaching this sublime harmony? One could indeed argue that, if this state was ever achieved, there would no longer be any need for abstract art as it would become redundant. Does pure abstraction need social unease for its production?

Perhaps somewhat symptomatic of a modern decline in the vitality and authority of European culture, both of these artist's careers culminate in New York, at a time whereby the central focus of artistic pursuit could be said to be shifting away from Paris (due to the sociological context) and over the Atlantic.

Following in Newman's premise that the only questions worth asking are the ones which can't be proven, my discussion will focus around the work of both Mondrian and Newman over this period, and will attempt to describe how their respective practices might be alluding to some state of melting into air .

Footnotes

Berman, Marshall: All That is Solid Melts into Air, Verso, 1983
Hampshire, Stuart: Logic and Appreciation in - Fried, Michael: Three American Painters from Modernist Painting and Formal Criticism
Originally published in The American Scholar, Autumn 1964, Art in Theory - P.769/775
Adolph Gottlieb, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman: Extract from statement, New York Times - 13th June 1943, Art in Theory - P.562

“Mondrian, in his attempt to destroy the Renaissance picture by his insistence on pure subject matter, succeeded only in raising the white plane and the right angle into a realm of sublimity, where the sublime paradoxically becomes an absolute of perfect sensations. The geometry (perfection) swallowed up his metaphysics (his exaltation). (1)

It is perhaps true to suggest that much has been discussed as to the power, intent and relevance of the artistic convictions which lay behind Mondrian’s developing abstract practice. Certainly in recent terms, he has tended to become more and more specifically associated with a legacy of artists who believed (and still do today) in the transformational power of art. (2)

The kernel of these interpretations, particularly with regard not only to Mondrian but also Kandinsky, lies with their association with the allegedly mysterious Theosophical movement, initially established by Madame Helena P. Blavatsky. (3) A card-carrying Theosophist for most of his life, Mondrian's work can certainly be seen to have accelerated as a result of becoming involved with this cult. However, it could also be argued that, aside from superficially making him disregard the context of the First World War, the seeds of what was to culminate in his late New York work in the forties had in fact always been there in various formats anyway.

It is therefore important to discern when the change from the pseudo-naturalistic (the solid ) to the potentially abstract (the air ), might have occurred and perhaps contextually why. The shift may have occurred at sometime around 1908 as a development out of his basic symbolist concerns. Drawing more and more during this period upon various philosophical systems of thought, Theosophy plays the role of a detonator for Mondrian. (4) Parallel to Kandinsky, he turned to Blavatsky's literature, especially the infamous 'The Secret Doctrine' as a means of collectively discussing a prominent theme of the early twentieth century, that of evolutionary progress.

Born out of discussions initiated by Darwinian theory, there became a heightened scientific interest in the passage of time itself, and how this ongoing process causes things to change. This need of science to explain the natural world is symptomatic of the Victorian era, and perhaps resulted in a popularization of the fourth dimension itself, as exemplified by H.G. Wells’ 1895 'The Time Machine'. (5) In a sense, the transitional period of the late Nineteenth century to early Twentieth century is best described by Berman's quotation. That which was known, or solid, was completely rethought and refigured. After Darwin, it was harder to believe in the Biblical version of evolution. This mass sense of re-evaluation (heightened by the dawn of a new century), tended, as I have described, to focus upon 'abstract' notions such as time, and therefore parallel in some respects to the change in artistic practice of the era. Indeed, it was a belief amongst early abstract painters such as Mondrian, that those people opposed to the abstract picture were themselves against the logical march of evolution. (6) The term evolution itself was to become the title of one of Mondrian's most heavily influenced Theosophical works, depicting the spiritual awakening alluded to in the later abstract works. Notably, it is also one of the few overtly figurative pieces of his career. Mondrian and the De Stijl group's 'Neo-Plasticism', although formally distinct from Blavatsky's premise, is essentially parallel in substance. Plasticism has tended to denote the creatively alive, or in other words, engaged in this awakening. Blavatsky's discussion of the symbolism of the cross was said by Mondrian to have provided the link between the early and the late works. Here it is suggested that there is a fundamental opposition, in formalist terms, between the equation of the masculine with the vertical, and the feminine with the horizontal. These are the two basic systems of Mondrian's work.

“Sensations are not transmissable, or rather, their purely qualitative properties are not transmissable. The same, however, does not apply to relations between sensations ... consequently only relations between sensations can have an objective value. (7)

Therefore, in borrowing from this symbolic system, Mondrian is perhaps then able to allude to his concerns of ascertaining the universal (tapping an underlying sublime harmony ) through providing, or even reflecting, masculine and feminine relationships, and proposing their formalistic incarnations as remedies for pseudo-social parallels. His later, more refined work can therefore be perhaps seen as models for future societies, depicting the bringing together of two contradictory elements to eventually produce a freedom . This too, could also be a subtle reflection of the wartime influences of the following ten years between 1910 and 1920. In aesthetic terms, Mondrian's practice seems untainted by the events surrounding the War (except maybe suppressing figuration as with many other early abstractionists), and his work would appear on the surface to proceed contextually uninfluenced.

Piet Mondrian, Composition In Oval With Color Planes 1 1914

Piet Mondrian, Composition With Color Planes and Grey Lines 1 1918

Piet Mondrian, Composition with Black, Red, Grey, Yellow and Blue 1921

Indeed, if anything, it sees his work rapidly develop out of a minor Cubistic style (causing parallels with Malevich), as in his Composition in Oval with Colour Planes 1 (1914) into the style which we might now more easily recognize in approach as distinctly his own ( Composition with Colour Planes and Grey Lines 1 of 1918).

In the light of his subsequent refinement of his own work over and over again throughout the next twenty years, I would in fact suggest that his work might have been influence by the War after all. In relation to Berman's quotation, I feel that Mondrian knew exactly that feeling of wanting to transform both himself and his world, although in one sense, his work does acknowledge this inability for pure abstract art to be useful because of it continual reworking. Whether or not he would have said this is debatable, although, in striving to overcome or supercede his previous work (to evolve as it were), he tends to perpetually arrive at a point of formalist equilibrium, whereby he perhaps concludes that itÏ s an uncertain perfection, and splinters his practice into endless re-evaluation.

“But won’t such abstracting and transformed composition make everything look alike ? That is a necessity rather than a hindrance, if we wish to express plastically what all things have in common instead of what sets them apart. Thus the particular, which diverts us from what is essential, disappears; only the universal remains. The depiction of objects gives way to pure plastic expression of relationships. (8)

The parallels attempted between sociological and formal structures are thus easily read as map-like constructions in terms of Mondrian's work, and indeed, his studio was also constructed as an arena whereby these geometric assemblages were played out architecturally.

Rosalind Krauss provides an excellent discussion of the problems in using grid structures as fundamental ends in themselves. She describes how the grid, impervious to language, is often viewed as a barricade to speech, and that there is a paradox in this continual (stereotypically Modernist) rediscovery of the grid structure, whereby this tradition tends to splinter into endless replication. This is exactly the case with Mondrian, making his style easy to imitate in terms of graphic design.

“The absolute stasis of the grid, its lack of hierarchy, of centre, of inflection, emphasizes not only its anti-referential character, but - more importantly - its hostility to narrative. This structure, impervious both to time and to incident, will not permit the projection of language into the domain of the visual, and the result is silence. (9)

Piet Mondrian in his 26 Rue du Depart studio, June 1934

Mondrian’s 15 East 59th Street studio after his death, showing Victory Boogie Woogie

Since his death, the arena of advertising has been able to plunder Mondrian's easily imitable aesthetic for its own ends, perhaps aptly conforming to the Greenbergian notion of kitsch. (10) So in some respects, Mondrian's formalistic relationships have ironically asserted their sociological concerns through their being embraced and tainted by the mass media. Therefore, if in any sense, this part of the discussion can be applied to Berman's statement, it is in the way in which the mass media itself (everything here is also surface) relies upon all that is solid melting into air (transmittance of radio or TV waves for example) and Mondrian's work becoming an integral part of this in having greatly influenced the look of things during the latter half of the Twentieth century.

Footnotes

Newman, Barnett: The Sublime is Now, Tiger's Eye - December 1948 (Art in Theory - P.572/4)
A good example of the enforcing of this legacy was the recent program 'Hidden Hands of Modernism - Is anybody there? (Channel Four, 1995)
Formed in 1875, the society has three objectives -
a. To encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy and science.
b. To form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction of race, sex, creed, cast or color.
c. To investigate and explain laws of nature, and the powers latent in man.
Bois, Yve-Alain: The Iconoclast in Piet Mondrian (Joop Joosten), Leonardo Arte, 1994
An excellent account of this period is contained in -
Henderson, Linda Dalrymple: The Fourth Dimension (Princeton University Press, 1993)
Mondrian, Piet: Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art , Circle - International Survey of Constructive Art, London, 1937
Mondrian, Piet: Quoted by Robert Morris in Notes on Sculpture 1-3, ArtForum, February / October 1966 and Summer 1967, Art in Theory P. 813/822
Mondrian, Piet: Dialogue on the New Plastic, De Stijl - February / March 1919, Art in Theory - P. 282/287
Krauss, Rosalind: The Originality of the Avant-Garde, October - No. 18 (Fall 1981), Art in Theory - P. 1060/5
Greenberg, Clement: Avant Garde and Kitsch, Partisan Review - Fall 1939

“Mondrian’s influence upon the look of things in the Twentieth century, has been vast. I mean, you don’t walk into stores and see placemats or shower curtains that remind you of Picasso, but you do see ones that remind you of Mondrian all the time, and of course, Mondrian’s formal system was one which was incredibly easy to plunder, and has been ceaselessly plundered and replundered ever since.”
Robert Hughes in 'Mr. Boogie Woogie Man' (BBC2, 1995)

Barnett Newman's work could in many respects be seen as a further 'aesthetic' (notably not ideological) refinement of Mondrian's practice, and indeed, it shares many common elements. For example, the straight line, the colour field, and the distinctive formal arrangement. Yet the difference, other than context, is that Newman's colour fields have been opened up as it were, and expanded to physically engage with the environment itself. This might have been brought about by a method of dissolution of all shape and distance through employing his infamous zips technique.

Q : “Can you clarify the meaning of your work in relation to society?”
A : “It is full of meaning, but the meaning must come from the seeing, not from talking. I feel, however, that one of its implications is its assertion of freedom, its denial of dogmatic principles, its repudiation of all dogmatic life. Almost fifteen years ago Harold Rosenberg challenged me to explain what one of my paintings could possibly mean to the world. My answer was that if he and others could read it properly it would mean the end of all state capitalism and totalitarianism. That answer still goes.” (1)

I feel as if Newman's paintings are in a way, far more personalized than Mondrian's in alluding to this common sense of universality. Impressed with Giacometti's existentialist themed figures at the Pierre Matisse gallery in February 1948, Newman's work could in fact be seen as some kind of post-war parallel, not only formally, but also in striving to depict an absolute amongst the surrounding emptiness. In this context, do they become hostile to their environment? If we are to take the example of his Onement 1 of 1948, we might be able to say that there is some degree of being able to identify with it. It's straight and upright, and therefore possibly figurative. This perhaps emphasizes Newman's belief that the self, terrible and constant, is for me the subject matter of painting . This element therefore bares close relation to Berman's notion of knowing the terror of disorientation and disintegration felt by the self in the face of everything associated with the modern .

Newman's declarations of space could be seen, in fact, to be visualisations of the process whereby the solid melts into air. In this I mean that the dissolution of both colour and form into environment and all-encompassing experience might be seen to blur the distinction between the solid , as embodied in the object itself (we are still aware that it's paint on canvas) blending with the air as alluded to by Newman as some form of pseudo-transcendental experience. The all-encompassing environment was actively encouraged by Newman, and perhaps reaches its pinnacle in Yves Klein's void works. Newman even gave specific instructions as to how his paintings were to be viewed. Tacked to a wall of the Betty Parsons Gallery during his second one man show in 1951, was the statement -

There is a tendency to look at large pictures from a distance.The large pictures in this exhibition are intended to be seen from a short distance. (2)

Barnett Newman, Cathedra 1951 (Installation View 1958)

Included in this show was the monumental Vir Heroicus Sublimis (1950/1) which further expands Newman's relation to Berman's quotation. If we are to view the work as an exploration of an octave of a particular hue, and the zips as the highest resonating notes in this scale (to use the stereotypically Modernist musical analogy), then this split between the play of verticals upon a surface and their parallels in carrying information across a space might therefore be enforced.

Barnett Newman, Vir Heroicus Sublimis 1950-1951

One interesting parallel with my previous discussion as to the reciprocal, splintered nature of Mondrian's practice is how Newman was influenced by early anarchist politics. Mondrian's recognition of the inability to achieve an absolute amongst this global chaos is reflected in the lesson Newman learnt from his interest in Russian anarchist Prince Peter Kropotkin, who discussed the idea of the creative freedom of the individual.(3) Kropotkin tends to conclude that this freedom is no more likely under radically dogmatic systems than under the established state doctrines. Are we therefore confronted with a paradoxical situation? Perhaps this disorder is in fact necessary for the production of work such as this.

Newman's paintings therefore, in a similar way to Mondrian’s before him, attempt to allude to some form of spiritual spatial awakening through the use of both saturated colour and the straight line. What is it about these two compositional elements which aspires to ‘melt the solid into air’? Or is it a case of deferred intentionalism?

“The world cannot be embodied in the mathematical symbols of x and y, but x and y can be used to give us a greater understanding, a vision of the world. The new painter owes the abstract artist a debt for giving him his language. (4)

I feel as if it perhaps has something to do with the effect which the geometricization of the world through Euclidean geometry (as discussed in the previous chapter) had in raising the prominence of the linear. This might be demonstrated by the increased attention to, and popularization of, the fourth dimension. This addressing of the unknowable became symptomatic of everything modern, to go beyond a certain limitation. As a means of becoming a defining language for some sense of common experience , it is therefore simple to see the appeal for artists, particularly when this structure fits the formal make-up of the canvas so well. Therefore, in blending with geometry and embracing new advances in science, artists could thus perhaps allude to being able to, in Newman’s words, explore the necessity for understanding, the unknowable comes before any desire to discover the unknown.(5)

Footnotes

Newman, Barnett: Interview with Dorothy Gees Seckler, Art in America - Summer 1962, Art in Theory - P. 764/766
Newman Barnett: Statement, Betty Parsons Gallery, April 23rd - May 12th 1951
Not only did Newman write the forward to Kropotkin's Memoirs of an Revolutionist , but his belief in political activity may also be found in the pamphlet he produced when deciding to run for Mayor of New York in 1933. The text is referred to as:

On the need for political action be men of culture
Barnett Newman: Selected Writings and Interviews
University of California Press, 1992
Ref. 3
Newman, Barnett: The First Man was an Artist, Tiger's Eye - October 1947, Art in Theory - P. 566/569

“Scientific method ... can function on any question, or, as in mathematics, without a question. But the choice of quest, the kind of question, is the basis of the scientific act. (1)

The straight line tells the truth. (2)

Therefore, in conclusion, both Newman and Mondrian's work might be proposed as personifying Berman's quotation. Their specific use of the straight line as some form of definite declaration of a state of matter only alludes to some form of absolute universality in that it relates the ordering of the basic brush mark to a sociological ordering. This process of ordered selection is after all, one of the fundamental perceptual activities.

I would propose that the allusion of their purely abstract art to world harmony might have been formed as a consequence of the contextual upheaval of its production. The straight line therefore, could perhaps be seen as a boundary point, beyond which everything known, or definitely declared in the world, melts into pure sensation or metaphorical interpretation (the 'air'). In a sense, the straight line (as described by Newman and Mondrian) balances between those things of which we can be sure and unsure of, mimicking perception as the linear experience which operates between the two.

Footnotes

Newman, Barnett: 'The First Man was an Artist', Tiger's Eye - October 1947, Art in Theory - P. 566/569
Mondrian, Piet: 'Dialogue on the New Plastic', De Stijl - February / March 1919, Art in Theory - P. 282/287

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