Green – Violet Center, 1943

About the Work

Bold green and glowing violet elements float in a field at the centre of a dark background. The coarser, more sombre structure of the latter is separated off by a painted frame, creating the impression of two paintings, one behind the other. The blackish grey surfaces are subtly modulated, an effect Ad Reinhardt intensified later in his famous ‘Black Paintings’. Reinhardt’s works are painted negation – an existential denial of any and all objectivity, perhaps even of the world itself. At the same time, however, a new beginning – a new world – emerges from within them.