Untitled 1947

Franz Kline made this untitled painting on paper with ink and gouache, and I can just imagine him there in his studio, feeling his way around the page. The left side is all loose, scratchy lines—a kind of nervous energy, like he’s mapping out a space. Then, BAM! The right side explodes with this big, confident block of deep blue. It’s so dense and solid, like a wall. But within that wall, Kline cuts out these shapes, these little windows, that let the light back in. I wonder if he was thinking about architecture, about building something up just to tear it down again. He often worked in black and white, but here, this striking blue feels like a real departure. Maybe he was feeling expansive, ready to break out of his own rules. I know the feeling. Kline’s work always reminds me that painting is a conversation, a back-and-forth between the artist and the canvas, and between artists across time.