Stanton Macdonald-Wright // Synchromist

"I strive to divest my art of all anecdote and illustration and to purify it to the point where the emotions of the spectator will be wholly aesthetic, as when listening to good music....I cast aside as nugatory all natural representation in my art. However, I still adhered to the fundamental laws of composition (placements and displacements of mass, as in the human body in movement) and created my pictures by means of color-form, which, by its organization in three dimensions, resulted in rhythm." -Stanton Macdonald-Wright

In western naturalism there are infinitely dividing vortices - a maelstrom of folds and organic inversions in the monadic cloth of the world. In eastern naturalism there are varying forms of matter following universal patterns, the same substance as solid, liquid, and gas, preceded and permeated by emptiness. They share depth in common, and also the repetition of like forms on different scales and in distinguishable transmutations.

Timmy Payungka Tjapangati

Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri

Geoffrey Bardon came to Papunya in the early 1970s and encouraged the Aboriginal people to put their dreaming stories on canvas, stories which had previously been depicted ephemerally on the ground. Clifford Possum emerged as one of the leaders in this school of painting, which has come to be called Papunya Tula.

Australian Aboriginal Art

 I wasn't able to find the names of these artists (the internet seems to regard Australian Aboriginal categorically); but they are spectacular.




I was reading this  NY Times article about the art of Australian Aboriginal children confined at the Carrolup River Native Settlement, a government institution in Western Australia in the 50's. Its incredibly sophisticated, and clear what it has to do with Cézanne. In fact Cézanne might have taken these over a Picasso. Here are a couple pieces.

 Parnell Dempster. Age 14

Reynold Hart. Age 13

James Turrell

"A friend of mine sometimes says, 'when confronted with any situation find what it has to do with Cézanne.'"
-Brian Rutenberg


puddles and pools of color - Romaticism
sharp identification - Classical



Looking at looking.
Painting about the process of seeing.

-Notes from Rutenberg videos