Painting (white) 1945

Fritz Glarner made Painting (white) with oil on canvas; those clean lines in red, yellow, and blue crisscrossing a pale, off-white ground. It’s easy to look at this kind of geometric abstraction and think it’s all about cool, detached intellect, but I wonder about the artist’s hand, the slow building of layers. I imagine Glarner carefully mapping out the composition, adjusting the placement of each line and rectangle, a constant process of trial and error. The texture looks smooth, even, built up through many layers of paint, each one influencing the final surface. There is such a sense of balance and harmony achieved through simple means. When you see how the composition plays with asymmetry and rhythm, it reminds me of Mondrian, but also feels different, like its own visual language. Painters like Glarner remind us that art isn't just about what we see, but how we see it. It's about being in conversation with the past while forging something new.