Awnings, Avenue Matignon 1950

Ellsworth Kelly made this study of "Awnings, Avenue Matignon" with paint and pencil. It looks like he was figuring out what the essence of the scene was, reducing the world to a few simple shapes and colors. There’s something so methodical about it, with these vertical blue rectangles, docked with white at the bottom. The blue is opaque, and the white is more like a bare canvas. Look closely, and you can see the pencil lines underneath, a kind of scaffolding that Kelly used to construct the image. The negative space is just as important, and the contrast between the blue and white is so sharp, creating a visual rhythm that’s almost musical. It reminds me of Agnes Martin, maybe because of the quietness, but also the sense of endless repetition. It's like Kelly is asking: What is the bare minimum we need to see to understand the world around us?