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Still

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Above, Philip Guston. Voyage, 1956. Oil/canvas, 72 x 76". Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, gift of Seymour Knox. Below, Charles Pollock. Number 98, 1968. Acrylic/canvas, 94 x 50". By courtesy of the artist
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The subtle tones favored by Frankenthaler, Louis, and many other artists of this group are made to seem even more "soft" and delicate by staining or spraying the raw canvas. Thus, a gentle "poetic" mood is suggested and the decorative quality of the surface is emphasized. Among Abstract-Expressionist works, Pollock's more lyrical paintings (such as Cathedral), Philip Guston's white and rose abstractions of the early 'fifties, Rothko's more lightly colored works, and some of Adja Yunkers' recent delicately tinted canvases are comparable. Rothko's case is special: his technique is similar (thin layers of pigment glazed and scumbled over each other) and his repetition of a single motif (soft-edged rectangles of various dimensions) more or less parallels methods used by Louis, Noland, Olitski a few years ago, a few works by Poons, and some younger artists. However, Rothko's range of expression with limited means was wider than theirs. His works range from expansive and joyful, orange and yellow canvases, to ominous dark plum and black compositions.
Other precursors of Color-Field artists include Barnett Newman (not included in this exhibition) and Clyfford Still. In one respect they are even closer to the younger artists than Pollock, Hofmann, and Rothko: their range of expression is equally narrow. The broad, flat, colored surfaces of Newman's classical canvases broken only by a line or two appear to this observer to be abortive attempts to achieve the all but impossible: the creation of credible visual metaphors for a Universal Absolute. Impressive as some of his canvases are in purely pictorial terms, it seems obvious that he failed to achieve what was beyond even Michelangelo's powers.
Clyfford Still does not attempt so much. His works lack the 

Jackson Pollock. Cathedral, 1947. Enamel and aluminium paint on canvas, 71 1/2 x 35 11/16". Collection Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Bernard J. Reis
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