Untitled 1955

Here's a small painting by Franz Kline, done with black paint on paper. The strokes are so confident, like he was just *going* for it, you know? I love imagining what it would have been like to be Kline in that moment, brush loaded, making these bold decisions. Was he thinking about architecture? Or maybe just feeling something big and trying to get it out? The paint isn’t too thick here, more like ink, which lets the white paper breathe, giving the whole thing a kind of lightness. Look at that one long vertical stroke—it’s so direct, it just *slices* through the space! Kline was part of a whole scene of artists pushing painting to its limits, figuring out what it could do. De Kooning, Motherwell, they were all in conversation, arguing and inspiring each other. It's like they were saying, "Let's see how much feeling we can pack into a single gesture."