Robert Rymans’ oeuvre is a testament to the rigor and boundlessness of his extraordinary and career-long exploration of the most elemental aspects of painting. Note is a meticulously rendered, beautifully scaled and invaluable addition to the artist’s revered corpus. By pairing down the visual vocabulary of his compositions and freeing himself from the constraints of figurative representation Ryman was able to wholly explore and elevate his materials and the physicality of his process. This reduced visual language allows viewers a heightened experience of appreciation for the gorgeous complexities and nuances of the physical attributes of the paint, its tones and textures, as well as the intricacies of Ryman’s brushwork and ability to meditate the relationship between paint and support. Note perfectly encapsulates the aims of this pursuit and Ryman’s lifelong. meditation on the fundamental elements of painting, typifying the mastery of Robert Ryman’s hand as an artist as well as radiantly displaying the profundity of his output.

After serving as a musician in an army reserve band during the Korean War Robert Ryman moved to New York City and studied jazz music. Much like the music he studied, Ryman’s painterly aesthetic is based on a clearly defined range of variables, within which he is capable of amazing permutation and inventiveness. To support himself during this time Ryman took a position as a guard at the Museum of Modern art and in 1953 he composed his first painting. Two years later he created what he considers his earliest professional work, a predominantly monochromatic piece titled Orange Painting in his signature square format. This fixation with the square as a framing device has continued throughout the entirety of his artistic career. A square with its universal symmetry is inherently ‘composed,’ obviating the need to assign pictorial order or balance. For Ryman, “If you have an equal-sided space and you’re going to put paint on it…, then [the square] seems like the most perfect space. I don’t have to get involved with spatial composition, as with rectangles and circles.” (the artist in conversation with Phyllis Tuchman, Artforum, May 1971, pp. 44-65) In the same literal fashion, Ryman does not choose white for symbolic reasons but for its suitability in revealing the inherent properties of paint: color, texture, density, light and reflectivity. The enduring paradox of freedom within structure is beautifully evident in Ryman’s energetic manipulation of white pigment within the compositional confines of the square, splendidly demonstrated in the present work. Note possess a lyricism signature to the artist.

The slightly uneven white shape – with its upward sloping top right edge and softened right corner – that dominates the composition of Note is dramatically framed by visible board. Ryman considers this as a continuous field with the wood wrapped around the sides of the stretcher, identifying the painting as an object of dimensionality and not simply a two-dimensional frontal picture plane. As an object, the wall also becomes the ground or support for the painting and its white expansiveness is integral to the viewer’s experience of the painting as a whole.

Ryman also chooses the material on which he paints for the properties of the surface – the smoothness, absorbency, hardness or texture – whether the support is canvas, wood, cardboard, Fiberglas or metal. Often, the exposure of the support and the absence of paint on one or more edge as in Note serves to unify the whole by emphasizing its construction. Even the artist’s signature visible towards the lower right-hand edge becomes a compositional element, refined to its essence of color and line. Note is a superb example of Ryman’s commitment to process and singular vision, situating him as an irrefutable and paramount contributor to the field of minimalism.

Artist

Robert Ryman