Cannonball 1969

Gene Davis made this stripe painting called Cannonball, and it’s like he was exploring a musical scale but with color instead of notes. Look at those vertical lines; they're not just lines, they're like individual tracks of color, each one humming a slightly different tune. I can imagine Davis, brush in hand, almost dancing as he laid down each stripe. It's a rhythm, right? It's almost like he’s saying, "Let's see what happens if I put this pale green next to that warm tan, what kind of buzz will we get?" I think about the way Barnett Newman used stripes, too, but Davis is looser, more playful. It’s like he’s saying, "Yeah, stripes, but make 'em sing!" And that’s painting: you try one thing, it works or it doesn’t, but you’re always in conversation with the canvas and with other artists, riffing off each other's ideas, pushing the whole thing forward.