Version One

Reading Between the Lines: Newman's Onement 1 and Stella's Die Fahne Hoch!

Both Barnett Newman's Onement 1 (1948) and Frank Stella's Die Fahne Hoch! (1959) use the edges of the canvas to dictate the line in their paintings. Onement 1 is visually cut in two by an orange vertical line--later called a "zip" by Newman--which is parallel to the edge of the canvas. Die Fahne Hoch! also takes the shape of the canvas as its starting point. Each line is determined by the rectangularity of the canvas and the size of the brush that Stella is using. In other words, his materials dictate the painting. Stella's devotion to his materials create, in Die Fahne Hoch!, a kind of grid in which what might be seen as an x and y axis meet in the middle of the canvas and then are surrounded by concentric right angles which repeat the lines of intersection and are equidistant from the original lines. Both of these paintings, however, are not exactly what they seem.

Onement 1 and Die Fahne Hoch! appear to be produced one way but were actually produced another way, disrupting figure/ground perceptions. At first glance, one might assume that Stella painted white lines on top of a black background. In fact, the opposite is true: Stella painted the thick black lines and what appear to be white lines are merely spaces of blank canvas. Onement 1 also may cause a viewer to wonder whether the "zip" was painted first or last, but as we know from Newman's explanation of the process, he painted around the "zips," placing a piece of masking tape over the canvas where the "zip" would be placed later. The fact that both of these works were painted in this manner speaks to the notion that Newman and Stella wanted to reverse the role of the artist to some extent. They literally wanted to paint around the canvas. When Stella or Newman wanted to highlight certain areas of the canvas, they painted around them, not on them.

Although the works share compositional qualities, the artists differ considerably in their artistic claims. Newman's work, as evident from the title, is concerned with religious matters. We know from his artistic statements that he thought transcendence could be achieved through painting and he was always concerned with his paintings being "complete." In other words, Newman believed that by looking at a completed painting about painting, one could transcend. Stella, on the other hand, felt that "what you see is what you see" and that one could not escape the materiality of the painting. The statements of his paintings were more political than spiritual, particularly Die Fahne Hoch!. The title is in German and the painting itself mirrors the Nazi swastika. It is unclear whether Stella intended to make a statement that the Nazis were like his painting or his painting like the Nazis. Nevertheless, he recognizes and highlights that relationship, causing the viewer to contemplate the implications of such a relationship.

Despite their differences, in the end, both artists accomplish somewhat the same thing. They produce paintings which are first and foremost about painting which take the material reality of painting--canvas, brush, paint--as starting points. This changes the role of the artist and makes him/her always dependent on their materials rather than the master of them. Newman and Stella had very different artistic sensibilities and beliefs in what a finished painting could do, but they agreed that the tools of production had to be the basis for those products.