Uriel 1955

Barnett Newman made this painting, Uriel, which is pretty big by the way, with oil on canvas. There’s this pale blue, almost white field dominating the left side. Then this vertical dark brown field on the right. Two thin white lines run along the inner side of the brown field. I bet Newman was thinking about how colour just vibrates when it meets another colour. He gives each colour its own space to be. What does it feel like to make such a big painting? I think about the paintings of Agnes Martin a lot when I see a painting like this. I bet Newman was thinking about Mondrian and maybe even Rothko, too. All these painters, all these paintings – it’s a long, ongoing conversation. Each one responding to what came before, trying to push painting to some new place.