| Artist: | Frank Stella |
|
|---|---|---|
| Title: | Tahkt-I-Sulayman I | |
| Date: | 1967 | |
| Nationality: | American | |
| Context: | Minimalism | |
| Movement: | ||
| Materials: | acrylic on canvas | |
| Subject: part of the "Protractor" series, interlace design; plays on the circular form based on an engineering tool of design--the protractor. Results in a rich complexity of interwoven forms that despite the overlaps and short circuits still affirm the flat surface plane. All the paintings in the series bear the exotic names of ancient circular cities in Asia Minor. Style: shaped canvases based on the protractor form in bright, multi-color forms; geometric hard-edge abstraction; simple forms; ambiguous, complex percept due to the interlace. Context: part of Minimalism's efforts to strip the image down to its skeletal primary structure; "less is more;" focus on the surface plane; you cannot read back into space illusionistically here, but only laterally across the surface; the painter as problem solver, rigorously systematic rather than emotional or expressionistic. | ||
