Untitled 1940

Karl Knaths made this untitled painting with oil paint; you can see the sweeping purple and yellow marks and the scratched-in lines of black paint. I'm feeling all the decisions and the uncertainty that the artist was dealing with while making it! The surface is built from many layers of thinned paint, and the colors blend together, but a strong angular structure holds it all in place. It kind of reminds me of the paintings of the cubists—maybe Knaths was looking at Picasso or Braque? Look at those long, confident marks of black paint! They hold everything together, almost like glue, and they also look a bit like the work of another painter, Marsden Hartley. Painters are always looking at each other’s work, so every mark holds a multitude of meanings. They are like a conversation between artists.