Homage to the Square 1966

This “Homage to the Square” painting by Josef Albers, lives at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. With what looks like oil paint, he’s created a series of squares within squares, a study in greens and blues, each nesting inside the other. I can imagine Albers in his studio, carefully mixing these colors, trying to get the exact right shade to create the illusion he's after. You know, when you look at them, each square seems to shift and vibrate a little depending on the colors around it. It's like he's saying, hey, color isn't just what it is, it's about what it does in relation to everything else. Painters like Albers always make me think about the materiality of paint, how the texture and surface can trick you. In his case, it's the flatness that gets me. Albers reminds us that painting is a form of embodied expression and artists are forever talking to each other. Painting is an ongoing, never-ending exchange of ideas.