Josef Albers
The beautiful paintings of our ugly era should be looked at and read
with children's eyes.
Albers' paintings are not merely a visual delight, they also contain
a message.
The longer you contemplate them with candid eyes, the further you
penetrate and the deeper they become.
They are like the forest that returns the echo of a call.
Like nature, they are a mirror.
All of Albers' paintings have a heart.
They never crumble or disintegrate, they never fall into dust.
They are not faded toys.
They have great, clear contents such as:
"I am here.
"Here I rest.
"I am on the earth and in the universe.
"I do not take flight.
"No one will hunt or harry me.
"I am not an enraged machine.
"I am not afraid.
"I can wait.
"I do not leap out of the painting into the incommensurable.
"I do not leap into the bottomless depth."
Many of my friends and their paintings do not want to be here at all.
Those friends and those paintings no longer exist.
They want to go to the devil.
At the sight of them how great is our desire to see an Albers!
The universe he creates carries in its heart the weight of an accom-
plished man.
One must have faith to be blessed. This is equally true of the world
of art
and especially of the art of our time.
Who could have foreseen that our time would be guided by reason to
to irrationality, noise, mechanical frenzy,
to ruin on the instalment plan, to teleguided disbelief.
BACK TO 1957
BACK TO ARP MAIN PAGE