This is an audio description of the painting White and Yellow
by artist Marlow Moss made in 1935. Moss produced abstract artworks based on
mathematical systems and proportions This work measures just over 62
centimetres high and 40 wide. It is a collage
using oil paint, string and cut out canvas
It is mounted on a canvas which stands about a centimetre proud
of a roughly painted white wooden frame This canvas hangs inside a deep white
box frame which is glazed The work is mostly an
off-white colour with one small rectangle of yellow
in the bottom left corner White and Yellow is one of the earliest
works Moss made with string and canvas
The work is strikingly geometrical All angles are right angles and lines
and elements within the design are parallel with the edges of the base
canvas and with each other The base canvas is painted white
A heavily textured piece of canvas is cut like an uppercase letter T laid
on its side It is also painted white and is overlaid
onto the base This shape covers the right hand side of
the canvas from top to bottom extending over a quarter of the
width About halfway down it extends out to the
left across the full width of the main canvas
It leaves a wide strip of underlying canvas exposed
across the top and bottom of the work This overlaid piece is dissected
vertically and horizontally by lengths of wire-like string less than
a millimetre wide The string has a darker colour and slight
metallic sheen One string runs vertically from top to
bottom A few centimetres in from the left edge
it cuts cleanly through the overlaid piece
Further strings subdivide the composition into rectangles
and squares. A few centimetres to the right
a second string runs in parallel also slicing through the overlay
but before it reaches the bottom of the composition it changes direction
turning horizontally to the right it cuts through the overlay
A third length of string runs horizontally across the top
a few centimetres below the edge of the main canvas
however this time it disappears behind the overlaid
shape A fourth line outlines the vertical inner edge of the
T-shaped overlay It disappears where the shape extends
out to the left and reappears towards the bottom of the
canvas Finally a short line runs horizontally
from the left It crosses the first vertical string and
ends at the second framing the top of the
painted yellow rectangle in the lower left section
On the bottom right under the overhang of the canvas
are small markings in amber paint While the layout has a mathematical
precision the three-dimensional nature of the work changes with light
and viewing position The dark strings can suggest either an
outline of a shape, an edge or shadow. It has been suggested
that Moss developed this relief technique
to achieve a linear composition without having to use any black
Moss felt that black hampered the expression of light
and while this composition is a construction of lines
none of them are drawn or painted All are created by an interplay between
cut and layered surfaces, textures, raised
strings and cast shadows
Writing about their work in 1949 Moss said it was
£constructed on a very simple principle, a geometrical figure
sometimes broken, sometimes cut, sometimes divided,
sometimes subdivided until the relation of the lines to each other
produces an aesthetic emotion" Moss suggests that the works can to a
certain extent be compared to music. "One considers the
lines in these drawings as sounds, note or chord progressions and
the geometrical figure as the musical key. Music is the art of combining
sounds with a view to beauty of form. This work aims at beauty of form by
coordinating form and line on the plane"
Moss lived and worked between Paris and Cornwall
An influential figure for a younger
generation of British artists, Moss' contribution to mid 20th century
abstract art has only recently gained wider recognition
This audio description was written by
Vocaleyes describer Clare LeMay and recorded by Chandrika Chevli