PRINTS
LeWitt, Sol; Edition Schellmann, New York
U.S. (1928 - 2007); U.S.: New York, New York
Red, Yellow, Blue and Gray Squares, Bordered By a Black Band (red)
1989
Aquatint on wove paper
11 1/2 x 11 1/2 in. (29.2 x 29.2 cm) image size; 18 1/16 x 18 1/16 in. (45.9 x 45.9 cm) sheet size; 19 5/16 x 19 5/16 x 1 1/4 in. (49 x 49 x 3.2 cm) frame size
Gift of Burt and Jane Berman
FA 2002.31.1

Open Form

As a composer, I am acutely aware of the various modes of temporality that inhere in different musical materials. Though the quality of time in a painting or print is often considered to be nonlinear—as opposed to the way that a piece of music unfolds successively in time—LeWitt’s work presents a definite narrative that arises through a gradual shift in the perception of the viewer. The temporal stasis implied by the seemingly monochromatic color fields gives way to a freer, more dynamic sense of time when the perception shifts to the complex, yet subtle, textures that constitute these colors. But LeWitt maintains the possibility for a nonlinear, temporal narrative in this work through his allowance of modular rearrangement of the individual panels. This sort of modular thinking—often called “open form” in music—was an important conceit for many composers of the postwar era. So, in this light, I would end with a possible playlist to accompany this work:

Earle Brown: Folio, Four Systems
LaMonte Young: Compositions 1960
Karlheinz Stockhausen: Momente
John Zorn: Cobra
John Cage: Ryoanji
Anthony Braxton: 9 Compositions (Iridium) 2006
Morton Feldman: Triadic Memories, Rothko Chapel
Luigi Nono: Das atmende Klarsein

-- Huck Hodge, Assistant Professor in Composition, School of Music, University of Washington.

Is something missing?
Centuries before scientists began their exploration, artists were studying the relationship between physical stimulus and our perceptions. The physical stimulus associated with color vision is the wavelength of light that varies continuously, and there are an infinite number of different distributions of light wavelengths. Leonardo da Vinci and other artists were the first to recognize that our perception of color is limited, not continuous and infinite. Da Vinci identified a hierarchy of six basic colors: white, yellow, green, blue, red, and black. All our color experience can be described as of combinations of these six colors. For example, purple can be described as the simultaneous sensation of red and blue. There are six different types of neurons in our visual system, one for each of the pure colors. Gray is thought to represent the absence of any color signals sent from our eye to the brain. Painters have often used pure colors in painting because they produce very vivid contrasts. In these prints, I expect a green square in the last position since three of the four other pure hues are represented but instead the last square is gray, the absence of all color sensation. -- Jay Neitz, Professor, Department of Ophthalmology, University of Washington.

-- Text panel for Viewpoints: Sol LeWitt, June 7 to September 7, 2014.