Horizontal I 1962

Morris Louis created this painting, Horizontal I, using acrylic paint on canvas. The impact of this work comes not just from its striking color, but from the artist's radical process. Louis poured diluted acrylic paint onto an unprimed canvas, allowing the colors to stain the fabric directly. This was a departure from traditional painting techniques, where the artist carefully applies paint to the surface. In Horizontal I, the bands of color appear to emerge from within the canvas itself, as the artist manipulated gravity and flow, to create a series of parallel bands. The technique is deceptively simple, yet it required a great deal of control and a deep understanding of the material properties of paint and canvas. Louis embraced chance and improvisation, but also brought intention to the flow of the artwork, blurring the lines between accident and design, and between "high art" and "craft".