KAREN WILKIN
Robert Motherwell 1915-1991
Robert Motherwell's death, at the age of seventy-six on July 16th,
seemed to mark the end of an era, the end of a time when American ab–
straction was something new, vigorous, startling, and inspiring to artists
everywhere. Motherwell and Willem de Kooning were the last surviving
members of the inner circle of Abstract Expressionism, and de Kooning,
alas, has been severely debilitated for many years. Motherwell, on the
other hand, remained a vigorous presence, painting, drawing, and
making prints with much of the elegance and authority that distinguished
his work from the very beginning of his career. It's only in the past year
or so that his art lost some of its incisiveness and potency - because of his
poor health - and nearly half a century's innovation and unflagging pur–
suit of excellence far outweighs this brief problematic period.
It's hard to decide just what is the most important part of Moth–
erwell's rich legacy. The solemn
Elegies,
with their jostling ovals and bars,
are probably his best known images. Originally intended as a tribute to
the short-lived Spanish Republic, the image preoccupied Motherwell, off
and on, from 1948 until his death. The graphic rows of elemental shapes
have been compared to everything from genitalia to the ears and tail of
the bull awarded to a triumphant matador at the end of a co
rrida
,
while
the last, tremulous (and, it must be admitted, very tentative) versions of
the motif suggest figures pressing together more than anything else.
Motherwell's own explanation is less specific:
I
take an elegy to be a funeral lamentation or funeral song for some–
thing one cared about. The
Spanish Elegies
are not "political," but
my private insistence that a terrible death happened that should not be
forgot. They are as eloquent as I could make them. But the pictures
are also general metaphors of the contrast between life and death, and
their interrelation.
Less familiar than the
Elegies,
the severely geometric
Open
series in–
cludes some of Motherwell's most economical and seductive paintings,
with their subtle drawn lines and floods of color, from sheets of
monochrome to pregnant chiaroscuro swirls. The
Opens
are deceptively
simple - variations on an outlined rectangle set against the rectangle of
the canvas - but at their best, they suggest infinite space, architecture,
