Radiation of Purple 1962

Max Bill made Radiation of Purple, and it’s kind of an exercise in geometry. The approach to artmaking is so straightforward and clean, no drips or blurry lines, just an apparent interest in form. Bill’s got this almost clinical application of paint, where the texture becomes part of the message. Look closely, and you see the surface has a slight tooth, a drag from the brush that reminds you it’s paint on something. The pale purple square in the middle feels almost like a void, calm but tense against the radiating warm colors. It feels like a quiet center from which everything else expands. I am put in mind of Josef Albers, thinking about how colors do things together. The whole thing's like a diagram of balance and tension, but it’s also strangely emotional, as if the colors themselves are having a conversation. It feels like a complete statement, even though it embraces a kind of calculated ambiguity.