DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

Help

Search

Advanced Search

Find results with:

Add another field

Search by date

to

Searching collections:

Visual Resources Center Digital Image Collection

Add or remove collections

Home Vir Heroicus Sublimis.

Reference URL

Share

Add tags

Comment

Rate

To link to this object, paste this link in email, IM or document

To embed this object, paste this HTML in website

Vir Heroicus Sublimis.

View Description

Loading content ...

you wish to report:

Your comment:

Your Name:

Submit

Cancel

...

Back to top

Powered by CONTENTdm®

Larger Image	Larger image may be viewed by UofL faculty, staff, and students only (log-in required using ULink username/password) at: http://echo.louisville.edu/login?url=http://vrc-web.louisville.edu/Jpegs/700/702-02.jpg
Title	Vir Heroicus Sublimis.
Translated Title	Heroic Sublime Man.
Creator	Newman, Barnett (American painter, 1905-1970)
Date	1950-1951
Cultural Context	American North American
Style/Period	Abstract (fine arts style) Abstract Expressionist Color-field Modern (styles and periods) Modernist
Theme	Paintings (visual works) Oil paintings (visual works) Avant-garde Abstraction Color (perceived attribute) Colors (hues or tints) Line (geometric concept)
Subject	Paintings Oil paintings Abstract paintings Abstract works Colors
Description	"The assertive flatness of the implacable field of red is emphasized by the linear vertical 'zips'. Rather than functioning as 'drawing' within space, these reinforce and delimit the space as a whole. White 'zips' in Newman's works also evoke primal beginnings: the separation of light from darkness, the uprightness of man in the void." (Caption, p. 15); "Barnett Newman, who alongside Rothko represented a tendency in Abstract Expressionism away from Pollock's linear 'gesturalism' in favor of expanses of color, exemplifies the contradictions involved here. His Vir Heroicus Sublimis of 1950-1 presents the complete antithesis to [André] Fougeron's Civilisation Atlantique in visual terms. Abandoning what he once described as the 'props and crutches' of conventional figurative subject-matter, Newman presents an uncompromising 15-foot-wide field of solid red broken only by 'zips' of color. In its resolute elimination of traditional composition this has direct affinities with Pollock's 'drip paintings' of the previous years. But Newman's work, like Fougeron's, implicitly assumes it has a public to address, if only by virtue of its scale. The question is, who constitutes this public? Recalling the early political sympathies of the Abstract Expressionists, Newman stated grandly in the late 1940s that, read properly, his works would signify the end of all state capitalism and totalitarianism'. Ironically, of course, those able to buy and 'read' them tended to be upholders of state power." (Excerpt, pp.15-16)
Material	Oil on canvas Oil paint (pigmented coating) Paint Canvas
Measurements	242.2 x 513.6 cm
Technique	Oil painting (technique) Painting (image-making)
Work Type	Paintings Oil paintings Abstract paintings Abstract works
Repository	Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) (New York, New York)
Source	Hopkins, David. After Modern Art: 1945-2000. Oxford History of Art. Oxford; New York: Oxford UP, 2000. (p.15, fig.6).
Rights	Photograph © 2000, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, ARS, NY, and DACS, London, 2000. Reproduced in Hopkins courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ben Heler. © ARS, NY, and DACS, London, 2000.
Digital Publisher	University of Louisville Department of Fine Arts/Allen R. Hite Art Institute Visual Resources Center
Format	image/jpeg
Digital File Name	VRC 702-02.jpg
Rating

DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

Find results with:

Searching collections:

Home Vir Heroicus Sublimis.

Vir Heroicus Sublimis.

Description

Tags

Comments