408
PARTISAN REVIEW
to right, and another swinging clockwise around the bottom. Paint·
ing number 2 starts from a broad radial motion over a space
divided into two very unequal parts. I have always liked this con·
ception of a composition laterally split in two and joined by a
rhythmic unity between the inner elements. Number 3 (which was
from the beginning conceived as a mural) shows a trapezoidal
division of spaces that seems to enhance the flatness of the wall.
Over this spatial conception a conflict of directional forces pushes
from right to left, while a weight seems to slide back from each
apex back toward the right again. For me, as can be readily
observed, the basis of a composition seems to be the generation
of some conflict that eventually gets held in repose.
For the next stage I surround myself with sheets of scratch·
paper and start to set things down in tangible form, at first using
any shapes that come into my head quite arbitrarily just to get
something down with which to start working. Sometimes a color·
scheme suggests itself at the start, usually it is evolved at a later
stage, and is never completely realized, in my case, until the
painting has begun to take shape upon the canvas.
In regard to the impulse which determines the shapes it is
difficult to write conclusively. The oddest, most casual forms in
nature may sometimes become the seeds for abstract pictures. The
markings made by a leak on the ceiling, a cloud, a piece of some
mechanism, a newspaper advertisement, almost anything can sug·
gest a shape for a painting. Gertrude Stein did not exhibit a very
broad knowledge of abstract art when she wrote "all abstract
shapes are pornographic that is a fact," but here is another influ.
ence from nature which some artists (Arp and Min)) have incor·
.porated. Arp frequently starts a new work from what he calls
"compositions par hasard"; he will tear up three or four scraps of
paper and proceed to drop them from a height of a foot or two.
When they happen to fall into some combination which suggests
an interesting interplay of form, he will paste them just as they
landed and from the resulting arrangement develop his composi·
tion. Gallatin once made a good abstract painting suggested by an
airplane photograph of Kenilworth Castle. The period of Helion
which I most admire seems to have roots in the early water-colors
of de la Fresnaye and Leger; of course this
inn~
way detracts from
Helion's quality or originality. The artist selects his material
