Relational Painting, Tondo #1 1944

Fritz Glarner made this relational painting, Tondo #1, with oil on board. I wonder if Glarner thought about how a circular shape might soften all those modernist right angles. I can imagine him carefully placing the blacks, whites, grays, yellows, and reds, thinking about the legacy of Mondrian but wanting to make something of his own. He may have wanted to play with relationships – not only between color and form, but also between painting and sculpture, and between the hard-edged and the soft. The edges of the forms are sharp, like cut paper, while the neutral tone of the ground seems almost chalky and soft. The circle itself is then framed with a raised edge, blurring the boundaries between painting and object. I think of Glarner as part of a conversation that spans decades, each artist working in relation to what came before, pushing boundaries and thinking about how we see and experience the world.