Ann: Where as many of the abstract expressionist artists began
as figurative painters, Ad Reindhart began as a geometric painter.
Very much following in the footsteps like many American artists
at that time of Piet Mondrian and the geometric,
almost rhythmic patterns of his early work.
He limited his palette to a very few select colors:
white, red, blue and ultimately by the end of the 50s black.
A color to which he devoted himself exclusively
through up until his death at the end of his 60s.
The sensibility of his pictures is a mystical one.
Like most of the abstract expressionist painters there's no figures
or any indication of landscape that the viewer can connect to.
Instead it's really the painting itself, the making of the painting
and perhaps even more important the perception of the painting
that matters to Reinhardt.
With the black paintings especially, his interests are very clear.
When you first look at a black square painting by Reinhardt
you really just see a black square.
But when you continue to focus and look at it a little while longer
what you'll see emerging from the depths of that black surface
is a cross going from top to bottom and side to side
in the center of the canvass.
In which you can read different colors embedded in that black
and emerging through the black, rewarding the viewer who takes the time
to really look and really be patient with the picture.
For all of the abstract expressionists, this is a key priority.
They're making paintings that take time to unfold.
They're making paintings that can't be glanced at
or walked passed quickly.
In this way the abstract expressionists I think thought of their works
almost as the holders of secrets.
One can initiate one's self into those secrets
without having to say any magic password or anything like that,
but just by spending time.
For those Philistines, the abstract expressionists would have said
who did not even know enough or care enough to spend the time.
They would walk right by these canvasses with no idea of what treasures
lay within them.
I think that just pleased these artists totally fine.
Their work was made to communicate with a certain level
of like-minded or like-spirited viewers who were ready
for what they were providing them.
If those viewers had to do something to prove it
like stand in front of the painting a little while, all the better.