Barnett Newman: Critical Analysis of Two Works

Barnett Newman was an Abstract Expressionist painter whose major early works were Onement I and Vir Heroicus Sublimis. Unlike the other Abstract Expressionists, Newman was interested most by color and composition, rather than technique. These works were critical in developing his style and have a significant importance in the history of art.

Onement I is a 27 ¼” x 16 ¼” oil and canvas painting , dating to 1948 that is primarily a dark burgundy color field, but contains a piece of tape placed vertically down the center of the painting dividing it into two halves. On the segment of masking tape is a painterly orange stripe, which he called a “zip.” It appears that Newman placed the tape directly onto the canvas and then painted on it. The addition of the tape has become part of the final piece. The burgundy background fades slightly toward the bottom, almost as a gradient, which offers a bit of downward movement, providing contrast to the upward movement of the zip.

The work is small and intimate compared to his later works. The later zips have a more definitive edge and seem to be painted directly onto the masking tape, covered completely with pigment, which is then added to the canvas later, giving a consistent one-inch wide, vertical line running throughout the work. The zip from Onement I is more of a gesture, which helps place Newman into the category of abstract expressionism. This gesture was painted on the tape that was already attached to the canvas, but is not consistently one-inch in width, like the later zips. Unlike other abstract expressionists, Newman used a minimal approach to his gestures. Instead of automatism, he controlled his brushstroke and confined it to the one-inch wide strip of masking tape, unlike the all-over works of Jackson Pollock or Cy Twombly. Although, he was more concerned with color than showing expression through action painting.

The viewer is undoubtedly going to try to interpret what the zip is and what it means. It must mean more than just a simple division of a canvas. The zips divide the work, but also create two unified sections. This duality of the zip only enhances its significance. The zip adds an element of light into Newman’s canvas . The majority of the canvas is a primarily a dark field of color, but the vertical stripe provides the only source of light in the piece. The zip became his trademark and he used this imagery in both his paintings and his sculptures.

Vir Heroicus Sublimis is an oil on canvas painting from 1950-1951, that is 7’ 11 3/8” x 17’ 9” , his largest undertaking until he completed Anna’s Light in 1968 . The work is monumental, both in style and grandeur. The piece is significantly larger than the earlier work of Onement I. The canvas is a covered with an extremely intense and uniformly painted shade of red. The composition is broken down into a triptych by a white zip and a brownish-black zip. The three fields of red are further broken down into smaller sections by a cadmium zip on the left “panel,” with a darker cadmium zip and a beige zip on the right hand side of the triptych.

The red fields are vast and the whole work provides a sense of the sublime, hence the title including “Sublimis.” The title can be translated to “man, heroic and sublime.” The canvas is hypnotic to look at when viewing in close proximity and it instills a sense of awe into the viewer. The painting seems to have it’s own aura and energy surrounding it. The intense red and the extreme size of the canvas makes walking up to Newman’s Vir Heroicus Sublimis feel as if you’re confronting a spiritual temple or shrine of sorts. This feeling is a “universal feeling of spiritual” and anyone who views that painting will have some internal feeling evoked, but this feeling cannot be completely understood. It has a presence to it that is not felt, even in some of Pollock’s larger works.

Both works are extremely flat and show no perspective or depth of field, but still have a strong sense of composition. The placement of the zips seems to be the most crucial element, next to the choice of color fields, in both of the works, but the reasoning behind the placement of the zips is not completely apparent. The central “panel” of Vir Heroicus Sublimis is a perfect square. This is obviously an integral part of the painting. Both of these canvases seem to have a central focus, unlike most of the other Abstract Expressionists, including Pollock, Clyfford Styll and Franz Kline. Many of the other Abstract Expressionists did not keep a central focus. Pollock in particular, created a canvas that was equally balanced in every inch. Every line was as important as the next. Most of Styll’s paintings were compositionally weighed toward one corner or had the major elements placed in numerous locations, offsetting any sense of balance. Kline’s broad gestures occupy the entire piece, providing a unified canvas, not a central focus. Onement I is perfectly divided into two equal sections, whereas Vir Heroicus Sublimis is divided into five sections. The separate sections are all of equal importance to the greater work, as they themselves, make up the composition. The paintings are balanced and harmonious, but also chaotic and disordered. They are balanced because the various fields are tied together by the inclusion of the zips. Without the zips, it would simply be a “blank” colored canvas. The works are harmonious because all of the elements fit in perfect balance. The zips in Vir Heroicus Sublimis are extremely chaotic and disordered, because they do not follow a set pattern or rhythm, with the exception of the perfect square created in the central panel of the painting. This is how the work is both balanced and chaotic, similar to the late works by Piet Mondrian.

Newman’s two paintings may be similar because they both contain his trademark zip, but due to the extreme difference in size, the works seem to have different meaning. The larger work of Vir Heroicus Sublimis seems to be more concerned with “being” than as simply a work of art. It has a larger than life connotation and represents more than what is immediately obvious to the viewer. A person must walk up and become “one” with the painting. It requires a closeness and a spiritual awareness that Onement I does not critically require. Onement I is simply the beginning of Newman’s practice. Newman took elements from abstraction and broke it down into one simple line. This painting was a total breakdown of formal composition and almost a complete rejection of the painterly abstraction.

Choice of color and the difference in contrast also separate the two works from each other. The dark burgundy background and the orange zip in Onement I are both dark shades. The contrast between the two colors is not that different when compared to the bold red against white, black, cadmium and beige zips in Vir Heroicus Sublimis. The burgundy and orange seem to blend together when viewing the work from afar. The zips in Vir Heroicus Sublimis are in stark contrast to the red. The white and black zips are at both ends of the color spectrum and stand out significantly. Those zips appear bolder and more refined. Onement I is also overall, much darker and muddier than the intensity of Vir Heroicus Sublimis. It appears that Newman took much more time in selecting the color of Vir Heroicus Sublimis, possibly due the much grander scale. The intense red seems much more calculated than the dark burgundy.

Newman’s work has a significant influence on the minimalist painters of the 1960’s. The color is a cold blue, instead of the warm and intense red. The lack of zips is the response and the solid field of blue monochrome is effective, but takes on another meaning than Newman’s paintings. Frank Stella is another artist who was influenced by Newman’s Onement I and especially Vir Heroicus Sublimis. His “black paintings” seem to use the elements found in Newman’s work and transform them into static geometric compositions.

The two paintings by Newman, Onement I and Vir Heroicus Sublimis are two works that are similar due to the fact that they both use a color field and have his trademark “zips.” Although they contain these common elements, the works take on different meanings due to size and intensity of color. The feelings that are evoked might be different, but both have inspired numerous artists, critics and art connoisseurs. Newman’s zips, vast color fields and breakdown of composition are the elements that both separated, and made him stand out, from the other Abstract Expressionists.

February, 2007