Last year, I went to see a series of paintings by Ellsworth Kelly at the Sotheby's showroom in New York. Each individual painting was smaller than the size of some desktop computers, and at first blush they seemed quite simple: one or two oblong, colorful shapes gathered near the center of the ecru canvas.
Ellsworth Kelly died on Sunday. He was 92. Over the seven decades of his career, Kelly influenced abstract impressionism, was a key figure in American postwar art, revolutionised color theory, and provided immense joy to those of us who number among his admirers.
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Kelly's paintings range from the regimented: he is known for his series of evenly-spaced color blocks, an architectural prism, to the freeing: a silver crescent winks on a wall, less the shape of a sickle than its quick swipe through the air.
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Unallied with definite forms, Kelly's paintings block our brain's automatic inclination to turn each shape into a thing. They're the reverse of Rorschach Tests, which ask the viewer to pour histories and complexities into nonspeaking blots. In a Kelly painting, one receives universes, becomes flooded with feeling.
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"I give what I've got," he said in an interview with The Guardian. "It's harder. But then, the visions were always too much... I feel like the world is over there, and it keeps coming at me, and I want to do it, respond to it."
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But the greatest gift Kelly has given us is the invitation to rejoice over seeing itself: that unceasing process where the cones in our retinas sensitise lightwaves in order to tell our nerve cells how to perceive color. It might be a gift most of us possess without recognition, but the singularity in Kelly's paintings forces us to remember how our world is a wash of large and small chromatic miracles.
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In other words, just behold them. Let the power of uninterrupted color spill into the chambers of your mind where everything doesn't need a name.
I've seen Kelly's paintings in several museums and galleries around the world, and my reaction endures. Each painting is a journey to an ultraviolet moment, when your eyes dared to stay open, sunward for a moment too long.
In preparing to write this farewell, I was researching Kelly and found a description of his artist's studio. In it, windows are sparse. He prefers skylights.
(Annapoorna Subramanian is a reporter and anchor for NDTV Prime's On Art, which will air from January 8)
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.
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