1948-C

The Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (the USA).

Canvas, oil.

The work is an excellent example of the mature style of the artist. It completely lacks objects and recognizable forms, and the essence of the work is an unevenly distributed bright colour, flickering like a flame of fire or an electric charge. The work has a certain depth, foreground and background, which appear due to the sharp border between contrasting colours and the thick layer of paint. According to Still, these contrasts convey the eternal struggle of darkness and light, good and evil, which combine and “merge in a frightening alliance on the canvas”. A warm colour palette, rich yellow and orange shades are also a characteristic feature of the artist’s works of the late 1940s.