Stripes in Art History

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ART IN STRIPES: AN EXPLANATION BY BARNETT NEWMAN, SEAN SCULLY AND AGNES MARTIN

According to the Google dictionary definition given by Oxford Languages, a "stripe" is "the area of plane between two parallel lines." This is the long subject that has often been the main focus of abstract or minimalist art. In fact, streaks, which can be found in the architecture and decorative patterns of the earliest civilizations, didn't become popular as a subject on their own until the 20th century, which was also a very successful time for pictures of grids and single colors. This recurrence can be seen in the work of a number of masters of abstractionism and minimalism from the 20th century to the present, such as Barnett Newman, Sean Scully, and Agnes Martin. Each artist's interpretation of the use of this linear element will become clear from their analysis of the work. Barnett Newman, an American sculptor and painter born in 1905, was one of the most important proponents of Color Field Painting, a branch of Abstract Expressionism. In this style, he mostly looked at different areas of color separated by vertical lines, trying to create harmonious relationships of subtle balance that make space seem bigger. This is shown well by the American's masterpiece from 1967, Voice of Fire, which is an acrylic painting on canvas with three equal-sized vertical stripes, two of which are painted blue and one of which is painted red. This kind of artistic investigation fits right in with the style of the most famous masters of Abstract Expressionism, like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and many others, who questioned what painting really was, trying to stir up emotions and ideas without using the usual three-dimensionality of art to get people to react to color, brushstroke, and texture alone. The Irish-born American painter Sean Scully was born in the United States in 1945. He is known for his abstract paintings, which often have a rhythmic structure of colored rectangles over which a pattern of stripes or checks takes over. The 1999 oil painting Wall of Light Desert Night is an example of this kind of abstractionism. It is part of the Wall of Light series and was inspired by a nighttime trip Scully took in the Nevada desert. He went there to get away from the chaos of Las Vegas, where he was staying. The colors in the painting are based on the colors seen in this dry ecosystem at dusk. The striped blue, gray, and black rectangles represent the sand surface getting darker as night falls, which is nicely shown by three "bricks" of a soft light pink. In this context, the viewer can easily imagine the gradual victory of darkness over light. He or she will go to think with the artist about the pathos that surrounds darkness, which can be thought of as the deepest mysteries of the unknown that have been trying to make people question themselves for centuries. Agnes Martin, an American minimalist painter, is the third "master of stripes." From 1974 until her death, most of her art experiments focused on exploring the creative potential of a single form, such as vertical and horizontal lines, which she put into a square canvas that was always the same size. What was just said can be seen in the painting "Happy Holiday" from 1999. It is an abstract work with a square picture field divided into fourteen horizontal stripes of equal width. The colors white and peachy pink alternate in a pattern of bands separated by undulating graphite pencil lines. Like the other paintings from the same time, this one started with a layer of white acrylic gesso on the whole surface of the canvas. This layer was never completely covered with different layers of color, which gives the painting a unique, bright luminosity. Also, the use of paint with pencil lines that aren't perfectly straight seems to remind both the viewer and the artist that geometric perfection doesn't exist in nature. This opens up a long discussion about how art and awareness of our surroundings can work together.

The comic: the line between abstract art and minimalist art
If you look at the definition of "stripe" again, you can see that it includes the word "straight," which is used to describe a line that never changes direction. So, the history of the stripe in art can also be traced by looking at the history of the line, which is its most important component and has had a lot of success in the creative world since the 20th century, as shown by Lyrical Abstractionism, Geometric Abstractionism, and Minimalism. In the first movement, this abstract language, which was created by the Russian painter and musician Vasily Kandinsky and other artists like the Swiss Paul Klee, sees the line as one of the most important parts of form and the only thing that can make a surface by getting thicker. Wassily Kandinsky's Transverse Line shows all of these things...