1) By Jessica Dawson, Special to The Washington Post, Sunday, September 29, 2002; Page G06
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2) By Blake Gopnik, Living Colors Washington’s Color-Field Painters, Like the ’60s, Are Back. Why? There’s No Black-and-White Answer. Washington Post Staff Writer. Sunday, September 29, 2002; Page G01
Frequently the written abstraction does not convey the essence of Visual Information. The core idea of the Post Articles seems to be that these were good artists and the work could now be seen as “kitch retro artifacts”. I don’t believe that the general public, even the art viewing portion of that public has ever come to a personal understanding of this work. When I look at Art Nouveau it feels “retro” but truly good art transcends time. That doesn’t mean that the work will not reflect the time in which it was created but somehow the work reaches out to us and it seems that it could have been made yesterday.
This is why the Impressionist & Post Impressionist have such a strong hold on the imagination of the general public. The work feels fresh after more than a hundred years and has a content that can be easily understood.. All of the really good Abstract-Expressionist paintings have that sense of freshness and the best of the Washington Color School has that same quality. BUT here the content is much less obvious and is easily misunderstood or even discarded.
How does one look at this work without a lot of “art speak”? I would ask another rhetorical question; How does one look at the clouds and a sunset? Does one come up with a clearly defined story? One sensually experiences those events and we may say that one sunset is more beautiful than another but for the most part we just soak up the sensual beauty of the event.
