EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E 
Postwar Abstract Painting
Corey D'Augustine, The Museum of Modern Art
https://www.coursera.org/learn/painting
C O U R S E   L E C T U R E 
Barnett Newman's Onement, I (1948)
Notes taken on May 6, 2017 by Edward Tanguay
Onement, I (1948)
Barnett Newman (1905-1970)
one of the major American artists in abstract expressionism
one of the foremost of the color field painters
born in New York City, the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland
studied philosophy at the City College of New York and worked in his father's business manufacturing clothing
he considered it his mature work
a breakthrough work aesthetically and in terms of his studio practice
his first fully developed concept of the zip
the characteristic graphic device of Newman
down the center of the painting
alternatively dividing and uniting the space of the canvas
underneath the cadmium red light band of paint, you will see a piece of masking tape
used Alizarin paint
he probably intended to rip this tape off
he was probably intending a white zip down the middle
this could be the very beginning of some methodical painting process that Newman was beginning
the band affirms the two-dimension location of the support
emphasized the figure/ground relationship of something in front of something else
although quite flat, something opaque versus a very translucent ground that you can read into see a certain amount of depth
Newman simply left the tape there and applied a cadmium red paint over the masking tape with a palette knife
therefore it has a buttery thin texture
lifts of paint which are characteristic of squeezing the palette knife down onto the surface of the painting
the paint will squirt out around the edges of the knife
we know its cadmium red
hue of color
opacity
cadmium being a heavy metal, you can think of it like lead, and so opaque
you either see the orange or your don't, characteristic of opaque pigments
it's not translucent like the Alizarin in the background
color choices
Hans Hofmann (1880-1966)
German-born American abstract expressionist painter
Hofmann's ideas of push and pull
the temperature of a color
it's ability to push out into your space optically or pull away from you
warm colors
associate with daylight
reds, yellows, the oranges
push into your space
they hit you in the eye first
cooler colors
associate with nighttime
blues, purples, even burgundies or maroons
are reticent
they're quieter in our eye, pulling back away from us
by contrasting that push and pull effect, Newman is reinforcing the figure/ground effect
the zip is hitting us in the eye first
the cooler colored background is moving away from us and is underneath the zip
it is also a translucent, a weaker color than the zip