3/2/2024 0 Comments Franz kline 1910 1962Kline was greatly interested in and intrigued by the place names of his childhood surroundings, not least those with Native American origins. The visible and pulsating energy of the brushstrokes is that of an abandoned and mystical dance. In particular, the thinner strokes emanating from the central block of Crow Dancer give a sense of swirling movement. ![]() With the title in mind, the viewer can even begin to imagine a headdress and other such details. Here, we can really envisage the frenetic energy of a tribal dancer bedecked in feathers, as is hinted at by the title. The forms in Kline's paintings often have a figurative appearance, which is particularly strong in the black areas of Crow Dancer. This is the death of the old gods and hierarchies of painting, and the dawn of a new age, presented on an absorbing scale, with almost calligraphic simplicity in the swirling black and white maelstrom. In Crow Dancer, the struggle that we see splayed across the canvas is epic and Wagnerian, involving the nature of art, the nature of life, and the nature of existence. The abstraction of Crow Dancer reveals one of Kline's greatest influences-Wagner. There is something at once incredibly and refreshingly simplistic about abstraction-a painting is a painting and nothing else-while at the same time there are deep currents of emotive meaning, of significance, and of energy in the turbulent play of black and white. Here Kline has turned the very gesture and act of painting into a statement about art's continuing validity. This in itself was a struggle, like so much of the greatest Abstract Expressionism, with the nature of painting itself. In his greatest and most recognized works, Kline's painting reduced Abstract Expressionism to a vital and terse struggle between black and white. The monumental canvas absorbs the viewer, as it did the painter, this intense play between black and white becoming the focus of our world. ![]() Painted in 1958, a vintage year from the highpoint of his artistic maturity, Kline's Crow Dancer presents the viewer with an epic and dynamic battle between the elements shown on a large scale.
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