Number 5 (Red Wall) 1952

Ad Reinhardt made this red wall of oil on canvas, sometime in his career. I imagine him standing here, brush in hand, layering shades of red over and over. It's almost meditative, this act of covering the canvas with subtle rectangles. You know, painting is a conversation. Reinhardt was definitely talking to Mondrian with this piece, and maybe even Rothko. The texture is so smooth, almost like a Rothko, but those hard-edged shapes remind me of early geometric abstraction. I wonder what Reinhardt was thinking as he worked, how the subtle variations in color and form slowly emerged under his hand. See how one block of color bleeds gently into another? Each one barely distinct, but essential to the whole. It’s like he’s showing us how much can happen within a single color.