Alphard 1961

Morris Louis made "Alphard" with acrylic on canvas. Look at those vertical bands of color cascading down the canvas, pooling like liquid light. I try to imagine Louis in his studio, tilting the canvas, coaxing the paint to flow, letting gravity do its thing. You can see the push and pull between control and chance. The colors—yellow, green, purple, red—they're not mixed, but they blend optically. Think of Helen Frankenthaler soaking her canvases, and you get a sense of the conversation Louis was having. The thing about color field painting is that there's no central image. It's all surface. It's about being in the moment, letting the paint lead the way. Painting like this reminds us that art is as much about the process as it is about the final image. It's about the conversation between artists across time.