Lema Sabachthani "Why have you forsaken me?"

  Stations of the Cross (1958-1966), the title of a major series from Barnett Newman, is about Jesus's long agony on Mount Calvary followed by his crucifixion and death, an event reenacted yearly on Good Friday by the Catholic Church. The Aramaic subtitle Lema Sabachthani, Jesus's anguished plea while dying on the cross, widens the impact of the work: "Why have you forsaken me". Following a heart attack in 1958, Barnett Newman made two paintings which grew to a series of fourteen plus one completed in 1966, inspired by the artist facing his own demise at a time of reckoning in a post-WWII era. The fifteen paintings, gift from Robert and Jane Meyerhoff, are permanently located in the Tower 1 of the East Building at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C..

Usually quiet, the gallery is the perfect space for the fifteen canvasses of the same size (6 1/2 by 5 feet) lined up on the walls in harmony with the architecture. The high glass ceiling lets the natural light gently bathe the room and the display is an invitation to sit on a bench surrounded by the works. The neutral colors, black and white, induce a state of tranquility and contemplation. A slow walk along the stations allows an immersive view of the large rectangular paintings for an "enveloping effect" (Greenberg) intended by the artist. A description of each abstract piece would be fastidious and pointless. A brief look from the first to the sixth painting will reveal slightly different shades of  white for the background, a black vertical band of  almost the same width on the left side and black zips on the right side with variations from brushstrokes, speckles or smudges. One cannot refrain from evoking Japanese calligraphy, updated by Newman. The ninth, tenth and eleventh canvasses are beige and white and match the series's vertical design, pillars? crosses? totems? A funerary black background and white zips relate to the final stages of the journey to Calvary ending with the death of Jesus (twelfth and thirteenth paintings). Fourteenth Station (1965-1966) is white, ethereal, immaculate, so bright that it feels like looking at the sun through white clouds. It reaches perfection without visible brushstrokes. A discreet light grey strip is found on the left side. A close look reveals the "spatial infinity" Barnett Newman was pursuing as he wished to visit the tundra to "... have the sensation of being surrounded by four horizons in a total surrender to spatial infinity." Traditionally the fifteenth Station of the Cross, when present, corresponds to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, one of the mysteries of the Church. Here the fifteenth painting, of the same heavenly white than the fourteenth, features a thin jagged blood-red border on the left side, the only warm color in the show and a narrow black strip on the right. The question stays unanswered: "why have you forsaken me".  

The last two paintings provide a clue to Newman's quest for the sublime and a path to infinity, art's higher goal than a search for beauty. Inspired by the indigenous art from the Northwest Coast of North America he wrote about the typical Kwakiutl artist: "For him, a shape was a living thing, a vehicle for abstract thought-complex, a carrier of the awesome feelings he felt before the terror of the unknowable."  "The Kwakiutl artist, the abstract shape he used, his entire plastic language, was directed by a ritualistic will towards metaphysical understanding." The art historian Robert Rosenblum wrote about Newman in his essay on The Abstract Sublime: "(Barnett Newman) ...explores a realm of sublimity so perilous that it defies comparison with even the most adventurous Romantic explorations into sublime nature." Barnett Newman creates art with a new purpose and as a viewer we have to learn new ways to look at it. Contemplation requires time and introspection to reach the spiritual enlightenment the artist aims to communicate. The artist himself wrote about his work in 1967: "I hope that my painting has the impact of giving someone, as it did me, the feeling of my own totality, of his own separateness, of his own individuality and at the same time of his connection to others, who are also separate." One more quote from The First Man was an Artist : "We are creating images whose reality is self-evident and which are devoid of the props and crutches that evoke associations with outmoded images, both sublime and beautiful. We are freeing ourselves of the impediments of memory, association, nostalgia, legend, myth, or what have you, that have been the devices of Western European painting. Instead of making cathedrals out of Christ, man or "life", we are making it out of ourselves out of our own feelings.  The image we produce is the self-evident one of revelation, real and concrete, that we can be understood by anyone who will look at it without the nostalgic glasses of history." With 14 stations about human suffering, could the 15th painting be a sign of hope?  

Donald Judd who wrote extensively about Newman's work stated: "A painting by Newman is finally no simpler than one by Cézanne". Agree. 

                               

  

photographs by the author:

"First Station" (1958)

View of the gallery

"Be II" (1961/1964)           

Barnett Newman's Legacy at The Ménil

Barnett Newman never was on my list of preferred artists. Comforted by my ability to recognize the "zips" interrupting large fields of colors, when encountering one of his paintings at a museum or a gallery, I would walk by and, after a short glance, move on. I "knew" his work. The exhibition Barnett Newman: The Late Work at The Ménil Collection brought me to reconsider my approach and spend some time to reevaluate his legacy. Assembling not only paintings from the late period (1965-1970) and a few earlier works, the display includes also tools from the artist's studio, two sculptures and unfinished pieces.
The two first paintings on display start a dialogue with their similar but reverse patterns, echoing each other. Proof of the power of colors, the blue painting Untitled, 1970, generates serenity, while drama exudes from the fiery red of White and Hot,1967. The artist's tools are displayed in a glass case close by. Forget palettes and delicate brushes, they include paint rollers and other industrial devices. Facing each other, the next paintings are identical, but created at different periods, illustrating the technical growth and maturation of the artist. The first version of Be I was made in 1949 with oil based paint and the second in 1970, with acrylic. The only vertical zip is precisely in the middle, generating a diptych-type effect. The contrast is striking with, on one side, a flat, dull painting and the other, a bright, radiant, warm version. Nearby, Here I, 1959, standing on a pedestal reminded me of Cy Twombly's sculptures with its raw material covered with white plaster and its simple rough shape.
One room is dedicated to earlier works from the fifties, including Primordial Light, 1954, Ulysses, 1952, Day Before One, 1951, and an untitled wall sculpture from 1959, minimalist in shape, juxtaposing red and black. The paintings' titles provide a clue when looking at the compositions. For example, Ulysses with its two-toned blue separated by a vertical black line evokes a seascape, the sky and infinity. The main room gathers the late pieces like Midnight Blue, 1970, from the Museum Ludwig in Cologne,  or Shimmer Bright, 1968, a turquoise variation from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The display is arranged by colors, and one wall is dedicated to black and white compositions How II, 1967 next to White Fire IV, 1968.  The second sculpture, Here III, 1965-66, is a smaller version of Broken Obelisk which can be seen near the Rothko Chapel further down the street. The three unfinished paintings from 1970 in the last room were found in the painter's studio upon his death and provide a melancholic conclusion to the visit along a few sketches, photographs of the artist's studio and the cover of the October 1971 issue of ARTnews featuring Midnight Blue.
It is a difficult task to describe paintings which physicality needs to be experienced, and photographic reproductions are inadequate to convey the depth of their compositions. The exhibition creates an environment conducive to a full appreciation of the artist's legacy with its carefully selected works set in a chronological progression, disrupted only by didactic sidelines underlining subtle changes in techniques or medium. The bare setting of the rooms, with a bench in the center and soft lightning, provides plenty of space to immerse oneself in each large painting, allowing it to fill the visual field without distraction. The apparent repetitiveness of the paintings creates a language which triggers contemplation and reflection for the engaged viewer. They can provoke emotions and give a sense of infinity, thus reach a spiritual level. Finally, I was able to understand what the art critic Clement Greenberg describes in "Art and Culture" as "emphatic flatness", and feel the "colour breathes from the canvas with an enveloping effect".
At last, I "saw" Barnett Newman's work.

photographs were not allowed
photographs from Bing Images, Creative Commons licence for use

"Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue?", 1966
"Voice of Fire", 1967
"Broken Obelisk", 1962

Lights and Silence

Was Dan Flavin's installation created for the space or Richmond Hall created for the installation?
The 1930's building was a grocery store, then a bar and a dance hall. Dan Flavin considered part of the Minimalist movement created the design. The work itself was completed posthumously and he never saw the finished work.
The biggest installation occupies the hall, and cannot be appreciated without walking through. The visual effect is created by the pattern of the lights and their shadows: two sets of vertical neon fluorescent lights pink, yellow, green blue separated by an horizontal line of dark violet lamps (blacklights) with a repetition of the colours along both walls (approximately 128 feet long).
Two major details disrupt this otherwise flawless work. The ceiling with the attachments for the air conditioning, breaks the lines created by the shadows of the neon lights which would make an arch. The floor is uneven and the light is not "pooling" like described in the catalogue. The light simply dies.
The other notable piece is one of the "monuments" to V. Tatlin (they were fifty of these "monuments" to V. Tatlin), which occupies a previous storage room in the same building.



The next stop is the Rothko Chapel. The octagonal room is lined up with huge paintings from Mark Rothko which are dominant black to dark purple. It is an invitation to introspection and there is no distraction for the eye from the ground of grey bricks to the sober shape of the building. The mind cannot wander in the space which appears harsh and soulless in its perfection. Maybe this chapel has never been used for its purpose and lacks the spirituality that fills places of worship. I found the Chapel sterile and uninspiring.



Walking out of the chapel, the visitor is met by the "Broken Obelisk" from Barnett Newman. This is a powerful work which defies the laws of gravity. The purity of the design is striking with its reflection in the pond surrounding it. Unfortunately, the space has shrunk around the sculpture which is becoming overgrown by shrubs limiting the view of this impressive work.








photograph above by the author



photograph to the right from the website (1987)