Russet 1958

Morris Louis made this gorgeous stain painting, Russet, with acrylic on canvas. He wasn't pushing paint around with a brush in the traditional sense; instead, he was pouring and manipulating thinned-down acrylics to soak directly into the canvas. It's like a dye, becoming one with the fabric. The colors are earthy – russet, like the name suggests, with tones of red, brown, and olive green. These colors aren't flat; they have a luminous, translucent quality, like light filtering through colored glass. Looking closely, especially towards the bottom, you can see how the colors bleed and blend, creating subtle shifts in tone. There's a beautiful messiness to the process, a tension between control and chance. I think about Helen Frankenthaler and how she was doing similar stuff, letting the paint do its thing. It reminds us that art isn't just about what you depict, but how you let the materials speak. There's no one right way to see it.