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P.1

Kenneth Noland

The target became a starting point for Kenneth Noland (before Jasper Johns) because it is a kind of ultimate image, the final possibility of focus, and yet with limitless possibilities of diffusion. 

Concentricity implies focus on the center, on the Bullseye, and the contrasts in a target zero in on that spot at the center which is as precisely determined and emphatically stressed as anything imaginable in the whole range of visual experience. At the same time, the flatness of the target and its repetitions and alternations of color and value resolve themselves statically and finitely at the bullseye. On the other hand, the stone thrown into the water sets up centrifugal forces which constantly destroy themselves at the center and radiate their energy to the perimeter, which is never fixed and constantly renews its edge. Against the concentric severity, against the monotony and centripetal idiocy of the target, stand the infinite possibilities of elaboration of the device, of expansion outward, of dynamic buoyancy, of richness and complexity.

The circle motifs, then, provide an absolute, rigidly disciplined scheme which emphasis all the more the spirit of free inventive play which underlies their manipulation, so that Noland's solutions, from painting to painting, are always surprising and fresh. At the same time, each painting implies a struggle against easy resolution of the tonal, textural and spatial situation; this in part explains the ability of the image to renew itself constantly in his work. He plainly uses the targets, as well as the unrelenting lozenges and the most recent chevrons, because these devices prevent the intrusion of design considerations which might lead to artfulness