Addition V 1959

Morris Louis made this large canvas, Addition V, with acrylic on canvas at some point in his career. When you stand in front of it, you might get a sense of how he let the paint do its thing, almost like he wasn't trying to control it too much. You know, the way the colors bleed and stain into the canvas, it's not about brushstrokes; it's more like a dance between the paint and the fabric. Look at how the red, green and dark brown kind of melt into each other, creating these transparent layers. The paint is so thin that the canvas seems to be breathing through it. It’s not just color; it’s like color becoming one with the surface. It reminds me a bit of Helen Frankenthaler's soak-stain paintings, but with a different vibe. While Frankenthaler is all about lyrical abstraction, Louis is exploring something more about the essence of color itself. Art's a conversation, right? And these artists are all part of it, bouncing ideas off each other.