Crimson Spinning #2

Alloway also spoke of what he called the “dyadic” nature of these works.⁵ Gottlieb’s paintings are complete statements within which the two main forms relate to each other and, as a pair, to the entire painting—including the exact physical dimensions of the canvas. The broader surface areas of his paintings, which are usually referred to as fields, are as carefully painted as the paired forms that occupy them, and with which they contrast. Gottlieb created images in which each element is part of a subtle and tenuous balance. That aspect of Gottlieb’s work is another part of meaning, since balance is a momentary state that is bound to change. The image thus parallels the experience of emotional states: both are transitory, precariously balanced, the result of and subject to opposing urges and tendencies; both develop over time and include a history of that development. In contrast to the “action painting” of the period, usually defined as a record of the unstructured flow of the artist’s hand and body in creating a painting, Gottlieb paints the act of being in a moment. 

In Crimson Spinning #2, the two large forms interact with each other in various ways. The upper form has more regular contours and is encircled by a halo of color that might imply either stasis or movement, while the lower form is unencumbered and expands toward the outer edges of the canvas. To exaggerate both the difference and the connection between these forms, the upper field is painted a warmer shade, while the lower field is overpainted in a cold white and has no clearly defined edge. Instead, the lower field alternately blends with and encroaches onto the upper, forming an irregular curve that extends across the width of the canvas. Gottlieb’s theme here is the constancy of change. 

To realize this abstract thought as a painting, the artist created each form with different paints, using different tools. The final layer of the upper form is painted with thick artist’s oil paint applied with a brush and palette knife, while the lower form consists of a commercial paint applied using a squeegee with enough speed and force to produce the drips and splashes that vector out from its edges (fig. 2). The juxtaposition of the contained and open spheres marks one statement of a whole carefully built of opposing pairs. Despite the ultimate appearance of balance, by locating those forms off-center (actually, off-two-centers), Gottlieb underscored the transitory nature of that balance. Either form has the capacity to subsume, exchange with, or replace the other. What we are shown in the painting is a moment in which all elements are in balance, but it is an active moment that is open to infinite variation.

The philosopher Finley Eversole wrote a lengthy essay about another Burst painting, titled Blast I (1958, Museum of Modern Art, New York). Among his observations are the following thoughts that apply to all of Gottlieb’s Burst paintings: “Much of the poetic power of Blast I comes from its simplicity as an abstract image, purified of all specific historical and cultural content. Its truth is existential, not cultural. . . . Behind it stands the archetypal war of opposites—Freud’s eros and thanatos—and a thousand myths of battle between sun-god-heroes and the dragons of the deep.”⁸ This fundamental opposition—the dependence of one pole on its opposite—was key to the artist, who called himself a “conceptual painter.”⁹ It can, and does, contain all aspects of perception, bringing us closer to what Gottlieb termed his “view of life” in the epigraph to this essay. The word “perception” in the English language has several definitions. According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, these include: “a result of perceiving (observation), a mental image (concept), awareness of the elements of environment through physical sensation (color perception), and a capacity for comprehension.”¹⁰ Gottlieb believed that his role as an artist was to create images that embody all of these possible interpretations, simultaneously. In making his paintings, he used his knowledge and skills as a painter to encompass the complexity that Eversole described, and more. Gottlieb both agreed with Eversole’s interpretation and believed that it was only one aspect of the kinds of experiences his manipulation of these images could express. “I don’t identify my paintings when I work with any philosophy of any sort. And I don’t think that my painting is the direct expression of a certain philosophy—there are too many other elements in it which have to do with a sensuous reaction and with a physical effect on the eyes and traditions of painting and so on.”¹¹

The complexity of Gottlieb’s art is often overlooked. Through carefully constructed pairs of opposites, both visual and actual, he was committed to presenting the abstraction and imperfections that he observed as constants: “We have aspirations and we have defeats, and in the life process we have all the experiences which make us feel anxiety or terror or joy and so on. I think all of this is legitimate material, which enters into a painting, but these are abstractions.”¹² Another important pairing, when considering Gottlieb’s work, is of the particular painting with the individual viewer. His is an art that communicates one to one rather than attempting to reach a mass audience. It avoids concepts like the “sublime,” which was the goal of some of his friends, like Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko. Gottlieb doesn’t believe in absolutes; he accepts limitations and doubt as experience. In his view, art and language are themselves abstractions that, in their distinctive ways, reflect and allow individuals to consider and review the imperfect realities they must manage. Crimson Spinning #2, like Gottlieb’s other late paintings, defines limits and potential in the same moment.