Homage to the Square (La Tehuana) 1951

Josef Albers made this oil painting of squares stacked inside each other in homage to, well, the square. Look at how the flat, solid blocks of color vibrate! There’s yellow around the edges and then bands of pink move towards an orange center. The yellow feels thin, like a wash, and the pinks and oranges feel like a creamy impasto, sitting on top. The textures are really working hard! I imagine Albers slowly layering the oil, letting each square just barely breathe. With each layer, the chromatic intensity subtly shifts. Each color reacts against the others creating something like a feeling—the way color makes you feel. Albers made hundreds of these paintings, playing the same chord over and over, just to see what might happen next. Like all painters, he's in conversation with a whole history of other painters. What do you think?