Josef Albers' Homage to the Square

I' was told; the object is the heart of the matter -- and I wondered is it? Most museums collect and display "serious art" in the form of objects. It is said that, the role of the artist is to give a meaning to an object, and the role of observer, or the "art connoisseur", is to decipher or to interpret that meaning. Are there any meanings hidden in the juxtaposed squares of Albers? Various minds, depending on how sophisticated they are, may attribute different levels of meaning to these works, and there are those brave souls that ask, why to search for a meaning? why not to look at their aesthetics and stop right there. May be their aesthetic quality is their meaning. I wonder what Kazimir Malevich, Frank Stella, Ad Reinhardt or Ellsworth Kelly, among other simple square lovers think of Albers' experiments. I think they are nice and decorative -- you know!


Josef Albers (March 19, 1888 – March 25, 1976) a student of the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany was a graphic designer and a painter whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the 20th century. His most influential work was created in the field of abstract painting and it showed an influence of both the Bauhaus and the Constructivists with its simplified geometric shapes. In his extensive series titled Homage to the Square, Albers, working in a laboratory-like studio, experimented with color and spatial relationships, in which the square formats, solid colors, and precise geometry, were the main compositional elements. Albers was able to achieve a seemingly endless range of visual effects. He also worked on typography, photography, and printmaking.

His technique in the Homage to the Square paintings consisted of applying the colour pigments directly from the tube onto squares of Masonite, a wood fiberboard, and spreading them evenly with a palette knife, and blended them on the board when necessary. Each painting was marked on the reverse with careful notations on the types and shades of color that he had used, in a record of the work's specific formal experiment. Albers also proved to be very influential to many other graphic designers and artists as a teacher at the Black Mountain College in North Carolina from 1933-49 and at Yale University in Connecticut from 1950-58.