Ninive 1949 - 1952

Victor Vasarely made "Ninive" with oil paint, laying down bright orange, warm purple, and deep reddish-brown shapes. Looking at this painting, I can see the artist carefully considers the relationships between colours. He takes his time, adjusting, balancing, and harmonising. I wonder what it was like for Vasarely to make this? Did he start with an idea and then try to realize it? Or did he just start painting, letting one shape inform the next? I think the physical properties of the paint itself, its viscosity and its ability to reflect light, have contributed to the emotional feeling here. There’s a lot of back-and-forth between artists through time. The Constructivists, maybe, come to mind. What do you think? Ultimately painting is an embodied practice; even something as rigid as geometry can be a form of expression.