Floral V 1960

Morris Louis made *Floral V* with acrylic on canvas, but when, I’m not sure. What I do know is that he was interested in process. Louis poured diluted acrylic paint onto the canvas, letting the colors bleed and merge, a bit like watercolor, but on a grand scale. Up top, you see these vertical stripes of color, like a vibrant, slightly out-of-focus garden, and below, it looks like it’s all melting into a dark, amorphous mass. There's a real sense of gravity at play, a pull downwards. And that’s what I love about Louis; he's not afraid to let the material do its thing. He lets the paint drip, pool, and stain the canvas, embracing accident and chance. It’s like he's saying, "Here's the paint, here's the canvas, let's see what happens." It’s a conversation between the artist and the medium, a dance between control and surrender. Reminds me a bit of Helen Frankenthaler's soak-stain paintings, where color becomes one with the canvas, dissolving boundaries. Ultimately, it’s a reminder that art is an experiment, not a formula.