Circle Form 1951

Ellsworth Kelly made this painting, Circle Form, with paint on paper, but when? The way Kelly applied the black paint makes the circle seem almost tangible, like a solid object placed onto the canvas. You can see the slight variations in the paint's texture around the edge of the circle, and how the paint pools in some areas more than others. It's as though Kelly wanted to show us the process of applying paint, the physical act of making the work, rather than trying to hide it behind an illusion. Looking at this circle reminds me of Ad Reinhardt, who similarly pushed the boundaries of what painting could be, in his case through subtle variations in tone and color. But where Reinhardt's work is about the infinite, Kelly's is more about the here and now, the simple beauty of a shape in space. What can something be in its most reduced form? It's a question, not an answer, and maybe the point is that there isn't one.