Number 6 1946

Here is Ad Reinhardt’s painting titled "Number 6". Its year of completion is unknown, and it resides at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. During the mid-20th century, when Reinhardt was at his peak, art shifted towards abstraction, where the personal expression of the artist was deemed pivotal. His style evolved to a place where he attempted to distill painting to its purest form. In "Number 6," you will notice the dominance of yellows, greens, and whites, blended to a point where forms barely emerge. What we see instead is a field of energy. Reinhardt’s focus on abstraction can be seen as a reaction against the socio-political art that was popular in the 1930s and 40s. Reinhardt distanced himself from making art about social issues to explore the spiritual dimension that abstraction could offer. In this way, his paintings ask us to experience the sublime, where we move beyond the tangible world and touch the divine. It is an invitation to reflect on the human experience in its most intimate, and perhaps universal, form.