Homage to the Square: Dissolving / Vanishing

Mediums: oil, masonite.
Location: Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, the USA).

Josef Albers started creating his famous “Homage to the Square” around 1950, when he was already over sixty years old. During the next 20 years and until his death, he created no less than one thousand of similar images, tirelessly working on a variety of colour variations, placed in strict squares. The artist’s technique was distinguished by the fact that he never used brushes, but applied paints unmixed, directly from a tube, using a knife for this. Despite the apparent simplicity, each square contains some research and has a certain function. In this painting, Albers wanted to confirm his assumption that the central square between the inner and outer square absorbs some colour of neighbouring areas, creating the effect of light haze and smooth dissolution of one colour in another.