1 + 3 x 3 1957

Camille Graeser made this geometric painting, 1 + 3 x 3, with careful intention. It looks like he worked hard to get those flat planes of color just right. I can picture him carefully masking off each area, a slow build-up of color creating a composition of horizontal and vertical lines. The colors are so bold and flat! It's like he's saying, "here is red, here is blue, here is yellow," and letting the relationships between them do all the work. What did he want to do with this work? There's an idea here about simplicity, an echo of Mondrian's grids, a way to get to the essence of painting.