ON VIEW

Description

Frank Stella’s Sinjerli, Variation I is a large-scale, circular, color field painting. The image is divided horizontally by two large, semicircular planes, which are subdivided into smaller variations on crescents that intersect concentrically. The artist chose muted variations of earth-toned primary and secondary colors, which he painted smoothly and evenly, with barely detectable brushwork, in acrylic. The canvas is stretched on a construction called a strainer, which in this case consists of two semicircular pieces of plywood, secured by plywood corner pieces buttressed by wooden bars at the top and bottom of the painting. The artist laid out the design in pencil before painting the canvas’s multiple, unbroken fields. These fields interact visually in a seductive manipulation of pulsating color and form a variety of asymmetrical, hard-edged, geometric shapes, such as interlaces, rainbows, and fans.

Context and Analysis

Sinjerli, Variation I is one of eighteen large-scale canvases included in Stella’s Protractor Series. The series takes its name from the semicircular drafting tool that inspired the design. These works, with their strong colors and geometric shapes, markedly depart from the artist’s earlier Black Paintings. Restrained and unambiguous, the pinstriped Black Paintings emphasized the work as an object and nothing more. In contrast, the works in the Protractor Series often have titles that suggest physical spaces external to them. Some of the titles, for instance, refer to ancient, circular-plan cities that the artist visited in Asia Minor. The title Sinjerli references a walled city that formed an almost perfect circle. The curvilinear elements within these paintings have been compared to similar elements found in Islamic art. These external references complicate Stella’s insistence upon removing external meaning from his compositions.


Like other works in this series, Sinjerli, Variation I is made up of variations on simple geometric shapes. The unusual shape of the canvas creates a sculptural effect and largely determines the internal components of the painting. The formal strategies of abstract Minimalism that Stella applied in his early paintings are still evident in Sinjerli, Variation I. The artist has emphasized the bare materiality of the work through highly defined shapes, saturated colors, and crisp lines reduced to their essence. The eccentric configurations on the surface of Sinjerli, Variation I are at once kinetic and flat. While the technique of overlapping creates a strong optical effect, it does not lend a sense of depth, but rather accentuates the flat surface of the work. At the same time, the hierarchy of fields continually shifts, as a result of interlacing protractor shapes with interwoven arcs. Stella has insisted by turns upon the irrelevance of all external meaning and an internal logic within the economy of a given work. He once asserted that “what you see is what you see.” 1 He also conceded that he wanted his “paintings to live in a world of their own” and that “the aim of art is to create space—space that is not compromised by decoration or illustration, space within which the subjects of painting can live.” 2


Connections

The Currier Museum holds another of Stella’s works, a 1982 lithograph entitled Yellow Journal, State I (Currier, 1987.50 ). Also in the Currier collection is a work by Donald Judd (Currier, 2005.30.1, 2005.30.2,2005.30.3,2005.30.4,2005.30.5,2005.30.6,2005.30.7,2005.30.8,2005.30.9,2005.30.10), a friend of Stella’s and an influential force for Stella’s practice, whose Minimalist works were intended to be devoid of any inherent meaning beyond their own physicality.


Written by Grace-Yvette Gemmell


Notes
1Constance W. Glenn, “Frank Stella,” in Grove Art Online (Oxford University Press, 2009).
2Frank Stella, Working Space (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), 5.


Bibliography

Halley, Peter. “Frank Stella . . . and the Simulacrum.” Flash Art 126 (January 1986): http://www.peterhalley.com/ARTISTS/PETER.HALLEY/Stella and Simulacrum.FR2.htm (accessed June 29, 2014).


Smith, Roberta. “Art Review: Frank Stella: New Work.” New York Times, July 5, 2012: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/06/arts/design/frank-stella-new-work.html?_r=0 (accessed June 29, 2014).