Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue
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Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue (English for 'Who 's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue ') is a picture of Barnett Newman in four variations. It is in the tradition of abstract expressionism and works with the monochrome effect of large areas of color and stripes in primary colors.
Link to image ( Please note copyrights )
Link to image ( Please note copyrights )
Link to image ( Please note copyrights )
Image descriptions
Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue II
The image of a symmetrical structure is determined by a red solid. This is in the middle, split by a thin blue strip pulls down from above through the picture. On the left and right edges pull in a similar way each one even thinner yellow stripe through the red Artistic design is - similar to The Black Square by Kazimir Malevich as the older work - withdrawn utmost. Newman stands but in a different tradition as Malevich, his painting was referred to as " abstract Imagist ".
Unlike the pure gesture of small-scale easel painting by Malevich in Newmann the image appears as an object in space by its size to the viewer. The color red dominates as a soothing element, but is in turn broken by the blue stripes and put into unrest. The yellow stripe on the edge are still visible in the corner of my eye, you stand in front of the painting. The symmetry contributes to the intense, disturbing effect on the viewer.
But the title with the terms of the primary colors red, yellow and blue also refers to the abstract painter Piet Mondrian, who in his later work, these mainly apply an end, where you can understand the provocative title as a challenge. Like Mondrian and Newman tape used for the production of straight lines.
The variations I, III and IV
The Variations II to IV change each other, the ratios of areas of color, but retain the three primary colors and the vertical structure of the color fields, while order and width of the individual color fields vary.
Reception
The title refers to the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee, which was premiered in 1962. This in turn is based on the children's song Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?
1998 composed by the Irish composer Ian Wilson, a Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra entitled Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue? In a comment on his piece, Wilson refers explicitly to Newman, " ... procure access to the piece ."
The film Who's Afraid of rotgelbblau from a screenplay by Heiko Schier is the now well- known title of Newman's image served as a springboard for his film, set in the milieu of the contemporary art scene in Berlin.
Neon - Who's afraid of red, yellow and blue is the title of an exhibition of 2012 in the Galerie Maison Rouge, the neon art is shown from the 1940s to the present.
Damage
The fourth variation was acquired in 1982 by the New National Gallery in Berlin, which led to considerable controversy in public. The image has been referred to in the popular press as a " work of a painter apprentice ", director Dieter Honisch received death threats. On 13 April of the same year a mentally ill veterinary student added the image of which he felt provoked serious damage to.
Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue III in the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum was severely damaged on 21 March 1986 stabbing of a visitor. The following restoration, the costs estimated at three hundred to four hundred thousand dollars, and was labeled by critics as amateurish, sparked an equally fierce nationwide debate like the vandalism of the disturbed own words perpetrator, in 1997 at the same place another picture of Newman damaged.