The Wild

The Museum of Modern Art, New York (the USA).

Canvas, oil.

This is a unique painting by Newman due to its unusual size. Tall and very narrow, it was perceived as a contrast to the canvas “Vir heroicus sublimis”. Moreover, for the first time, both works were located at the exhibition, one directly opposite the other. This, as conceived by the author, demonstrated his conviction that the picture should not be physically large-scale to get an intense emotional reaction from the viewer. The neutral background makes the viewer focus only on the lighting strip. This work is considered as one of the first paintings of this kind in art history – they became popular more than ten years later with the advent of such artists as Frank Stella and Kenneth Noland.