BRICE MARDEN

There is transparency to some of the works of Brice Marden. Marden is an artist who utilized calligraphy for their inspiration. In Marden’s Cold Mountain series of paintings, there is a distinct sense of transparent form making.  And in fact the Cold Mountain series is considered their most notable work.

To get a sense of his Cold Mountain series, this link takes you to a Google Images compilation page.  Scroll around for a second, and some of the paintings should jump out at you as being transparent.

Wikipedia describes Marden as a Minimalist, and it goes on to say that their work is difficult to categorize.  Having a body of work that is difficult to categorize certainly is an achievement in and of itself.

Marden’s line and gesture provide an interesting overlay on the canvas.  There is a continuous overlapping of lines, as forms and shapes are roughly outlined.  The forms are suggested without being resolved into any sort of realizable closed shape.  Some of the paintings remind me of a sort of expressionist space frame;  think Buckminster Fuller in a time warp.

It is interesting that Marden was able to achieve this transparency using calligraphy as a touchstone.  These pages have utilized writing as the basis for form generation.  See, for example, Calligraphy as a Graphic, or Scientific Icons.

Nevertheless, it is interesting to know that Marden, with the use of oil paints, was able to achieve some level of transparent form making.  As we know, examples like these are few and far between.

The forms for the drawing above were generated from a de Kooning drawing.  Yet the forms have a similarity to Marden’s drawings.