Frank Stella

Frank Stella, who was born on May 12, 1936, became interested in painting at a very young age, particularly in the fields of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction (Fabozzi 2002). After creating a few impersonal black striped paintings in 1959, Frank Stella was already well-known. Frank gradually shifted his attention to the formal components of painting. His work appeared to develop naturally over time, becoming more and more intricate. Additionally, the arts began to adopt new dynamism, size, and tactility. Furthermore, Frank Stella changed his paintings from using a monochromatic palette to using vibrant colors (Fabozzi 2002). Later on, Frank learnt how to incorporate the paintings with one another creating a third dimension. These three-dimensional structures are free-standing sculptures. With such creativity and experimentation, Frank has risen to be an important figure in the art of painting who has contributed significantly, towards post-painterly abstraction minimalism and color field painting (Marshall 2009). The following paper explores the historical work of Frank Stellar as well as identifying the negative criticism which his work received in the course of his career.

Description of Frank Stella’s Paintings

Frank Stella’s black paintings consisted of delineated parallel stripes which were made using house paint. These stripes were critical according to Stella because they produced a sense of illusion which was useful in regulating the entire system of art. The device was useful in prompting the viewer to see the canvas as a flat and two-dimensional surface which is paint-covered. Later on, the two-dimensional model advanced into a three-dimensional model which was only realized during the Renaissance period (Stella, Axsom, and Kolb, Frank Stella Prints : a catalog raisonné 2016). The three-dimensional art has been used for many centuries.

Stella’s paintings also emphasized on the Minimalist art which was predominant in the 1960s. The black paintings were based on predetermined and circumscribed systems. Other minimalist artists also created abstract works during the period whereby they employed the use of repeated geometry. Stella’s paintings were mostly nonrepresentational in nature. They did not allude any emotions, meanings or narratives. His work was based on shapes, color, and composition (Strickland 2000). In addition, Stella focused on plane, line, volume and point. He later adopted the use of object-like canvas which asymmetrical and irregular which he used to paint on the flat surface in order to create an illusion.

A major advancement in Frank Stella’s painting was the adoption of the Baroque artists’ innovation. These masters of the 17th century used illusionistic tricks to enable the art to emerge from the canvas to the space of the viewer (Stella 1986, p. 2). However, Stella, instead of employing the illusionistic tricks, he extended the paintings to form three-dimensional structures in his paintings. These three-dimensional structures entered the viewer's space with ease by using the protruding materials.

Criticism of Frank Stella’s Paintings

As much as Frank is celebrated for developing the minimalism and post-painterly abstraction, some people are critiques of his work. Most people argue that Stella's own pre-emptively neutralizing temperament was the reason behind the failure of his art to make any promises. There was also a hovering insecurity that Stella’s work would be too anomic and detached (Hobbs 2002). Therefore, to counter this, Stella used odd titles for his art in order to have political intimations and at the same time to relate with exotic literary references. According to critics of Stella’s work, these names are meant to create a promise of secret buried or drama behind his work. However, most of his works lack the secrets they tend to attribute. They are nonrepresentational in nature. In the year 1984, Frank Stella admitted that his work did not bear any meaning while sharing his career wisdom at Harvard University (Marshall 2009). He declared that abstract painting was cipher-like with the ability to communicate on both on a human level as well as with a wide audience. Therefore, Stella later embarked on the deductive proto-minimalism which was ultra-lucid and mainly characterized by irrational, freakish baroque elaborations (Hobbs 2002).

Stella's paintings employ too much theatrics as opposed to a real meaning or emotion. He has always concentrated on paintings which are contemporary considering that they barely communicate to the audience. The industrial-strength distraction factory which was the nature of the painting and art industry during Stella’s career years played a role in shaping the nature of his paintings. According to critiques of Stella's work, the museums in the 1970s would use popular paintings in order to get bigger audiences like Stella’s without much consideration to other factors such as meaning, history or the emotional nature of such paintings. The bulky nature of his work would therefore only be hosted by museums which require more tourist or inside new buildings. For instance, some of Stella’s paintings such as La Pena de Hu (1987-2009) are not appealing and generally tell nothing.

Clement Greenberg was particularly critical of Stella’s work. According to Greenberg, the effect of presence is a critical part of the literary work (Fried 1967, p. 2). Mostly, the size or the look of non-art can confer the presence. In response to the three-dimensional models adopted by Stella, Greenberg suggests that tucked-up or stretched canvas are pictures by themselves even if the pictures may not be as successful. Therefore, this implies that the recentness of the sculpture or its look was not part of the art of painting.

Some art critics are also against Stella’s notoriety painting in the 1950s. In some of his series painting in the 1950s (Die Fahne Hoch), Stella did a painting with red strips which was part of his minimalist and geometric art (Smith 2007). However, despite doing this painting, he was not happy with it. Therefore, instead of working it into completion, he painted it over all black before retiring to bed. In the morning, he found the art more attractive than he had anticipated. He considered the painting to be a mess, but most people found it interesting because of the red strips, they were all black making it a one-color painting instead of one. This brought about a new idea in his painting career. However, Stella acknowledges that the black painting did not make him famous. Instead, the painting made him notorious (Hobbs 2002).

Despite the negative criticism Stella’s work receives from various quarters, some artists, especially those he has taught praise his work in equal measure. Macarthur Genius grantee Julie Mehretu is among the youngest artists who draw inspiration from Stella’s work (Michel 2015, p. 1). According to her, Stella’s paintings usually follow some kind of a playful pattern and are characterized by extreme rigor. These characteristics of Stella’s art are continues and replicate in almost of his series (Michel 2015, p. 1). In addition, Stella had a wide range of knowledge in the final phase of romanticism which enabled him to perceive with amazing acuity the exact position of its Achilles’ heel (Hobbs 2002, p. 26). Furthermore, Stella’s jubilant embrace of a jumbled world is critical to integrating both the old and the new millennia. This forms a key part of his art.

Clement Greenberg is particularly a critique of Stella’s abstract expressionism. Despite this being Stella’s decision made in the 1950s while a student to be the role model in the new art, Greenberg insists on the importance of delivering a message across the art of painting which Stella’s painting lack. Barnett Newman, in his zip paintings, proposed the disparities between minimal form and maximal content. Stella adopted most of Newman designs. However, Greenberg criticized the design suggesting that Newman’s straight lines which were part of the design fail to echo those of the frame but instead tend to parody it (Smith 2007). Therefore, Newman’s’ pictures end up becoming all frame in themselves. In addition, the picture edge is repeated inside which makes the picture edge to be repeated inside. According to Greenberg, Newton’s edges are somehow limiting on the larger Canvases.

However, based on Greenberg’s criticism of his paintings which were mainly derived from Newton’s design, Stella used this criticism to improve his paintings. He avoided overreliance on the overall perimeters of painting both for its composition as well as its content (Michel 2015). In the course of the criticism, Stella came up with the idea of paintings as self-sufficient objects. This became the beginning of using aluminum paintings as well as shaped canvases. Stella's copper painting in the 1960s was a new permutation which represented the concept (Hobbs 2002, p. 27).

American art and sculptor critic Donald Judd also criticizes Stella’s three-dimensional paintings. These paintings are based on Oldenburg’s paintings. According to Judd (1977), these paintings require three dimensions so that they can simulate and enlarge a real object and at the same time equate it and an emotive form. A casing example given by Judd is a painted hamburger. According to Judd, painting a hamburger will see it retain something of the traditional anthropomorphism. Based on this argument, Stella's work lacks originality because the three-dimensional sculptures painted still retain their traditional morphology. Hence, interpretation of such paintings is distorted since it will all depend on the viewer’s knowledge of such objects. This explains why most of the paintings done by Stella are just abstract lacking any deeper or hidden meaning or emotions.

Another Judd’s criticism of Stella and Oldenburg’s paintings is that they lack structure in the usual sense (Judd 1977, p. 5). Their work is different from Chamberlain’s work which involves composition. Failure to depict a formal structure which the viewers can relate to is both an advantage and a disadvantage in equal measure. For instance, there are viewers who are attracted to sculptures or paintings which have structure which they can relate or which resonates with their emotions. Such viewers would not be interested in Stella’s work which is mostly, abstract with no emotional or meaning behind. On the contrary, there are viewers who are interested in such paintings of sculptures which lack a structure, and they can work the structure on their own. Such paintings have different meanings to different views, and therefore the audience can choose to adopt a view which resonates with their experiences.

In his book Working Space, Stella is highly critical of the fact that abstract painting has become so much criticized which has significantly, hindered the modernist ambitions. His criticism is ironical given that most his relief paintings including the Mobby Dick series are just surface decorations. Even after he started developing shapes, Stella painted the same forms using the same repertoire of cut out shapes. A case in example is Stella’s Mobby Dick Series. When the paintings reach their peak in the “C” and “D” series, due to continued layering of shapes over shapes, the structure appears to be chaotic and complex (Linsley, 2012). Therefore, most of Stella’s paintings lose meaning when they reach this stage. They are not recognizable at a glance by the viewers, and therefore the audience has to derive a meaning based on a personal interpretation which often takes a lot of time to decipher (Linsley 2012).

Stella’s work also fails to have some form of consistency which is critical for any painting artist. It is important for a painter to develop a line in which his audience can identify him/her in. However, Stella’s work lacks the consistency between style and meaning which makes his work to appear random and unstructured. For instance, he wants the audience to slow down and look. However, at the same time, he wants to speed up with his work and enter an all-enveloping pictorial space.

Most of Stella’s three-dimensional work is difficult to understand. In some of his series, the sides and the backs of the three-dimensional structures are a little easier to grasp especially if it is difficult to decipher the meaning from the front. However, Stella’ painting of the back of his three-dimensional works are a little bewildering. It reflects an enumeration of all the conventional manners of abstractions in the seventies. Stella puts in so much effort making paintings that will rarely or sometimes never be seen. Also, for most of the paintings which his audience get to see, the audience rarely know what to make of them at first. Therefore, Stella's decision to embrace the abstraction was a realization that there is no way to escape from the sludge.

In most of his books and articles, Stella rejects the canonical strategies of emptying, purifying, clearing and clarification. This, therefore, indicates the level of flatness of most of his paintings which do not bear any meaning. According to Stella’s art of abstraction, what you see is what you see. The obvious interpretation of Stella’s work is that abstraction can keep its surface. However, they must be lifted on planes which are space-suspended. This implies that the relief painting which is part of Stella’s art is a solution which does not change anything.

Although Stella's paintings indicate a lot of creativity in terms of color, patterns, and lines, he does not have anything particularly important in mind when he embarks on a painting. For instance, when Stella was painting the supports and the backs of the Indian Birds, he did not have a concrete idea except the need to include all the parts of the picture that were visible (Linsley 2012). However, there are certain aspects of Stella’s paintings which bring about the essence of the pictorial. For instance, the surfaces of both the front and the back of the Moby Dick painting are both rough and tactile. Painting of both sides of the Moby Dick brings out the phenomenal nature of the paintings (Linsley 2012). This makes the painted planes to appear as images instead of things.

A critical assessment of Stella’s paintings indicates his effort to get abstraction off the painterly surface in order to create an imaginative space which is compelling. These relief paintings are usually accompanied by prints. A case in example is the Mobby Dick prints which are more than three (Linsley 2012). They also have a lot of depth. Being a modernist painter, Stella paints overlapping planes which are close to one another of further apart. Based on how the paintings, it is quite normal to criticize Stella’s work on whether the relief paintings are necessary and whether they do offer any genuinely new spatial possibilities.

Linsley (2012) also criticizes Stella’s work for the fact that for the years he has been undertaking his painting career, he never invented any form. However, he managed to contribute immensely to the abstraction through his skills in devising configurations of straight lines as well as regular curves. According to Linsley (2012), these elements of Stella’s abstract paintings are inexpressive and empty. Furthermore, the art is considered provocative or polemical by some people. Various series of Stella’s work including Polish Villages and Irregular Polygons are deemed as complicated. Most of the problems facing Stella’s paintings arose from the early seventies up to the mid-eighties.

Another part of Stella’s work which Linsley is critical about is his Exotic Birds in Vancouver in 1978. The show was accompanied by baroque glitter and extravagance which according to Linsley was to make an appeal to sensibility as opposed to formal intelligence. However, his works were not as appealing. One thing which is clear though about Stella’s work is that he chooses independence as opposed to deference. Therefore, part of his past success in the painting is from his limits of freedom since he was in a position to explore as many designs as possible without much interference from the existing designs at the time. This is a key strategy for artists especially when it comes to meeting the market demands. Most people who have interacted with Stella’s art admit to taking more time to appreciate his designs since they do not resonate with theme immediately.

Since most of Stella’s work is experimental, he records both hits and misses when he embarks on a project. For instance, when he embarked on the Exotic Bird, Stella took up a repertoire of shapes that were fixed and made an attempt to successful arrangements without altering them in any way so that they can fit. This kind of strategy which he employs in most of his three-dimensional paintings has its own limitations because regardless of how difficult it is to fit these shapes, the viewer may not be in a position to relate with the painting or worse still be able to identify the meaning behind it. Another example of such an undertaking is Stella’s Indian Birds series. He developed a system of complex layers and interweavings which are curved by mesh supports. Therefore, for Stella, success in this project meant complexity instead of how the painting resonates with the viewers. According to Linsley (2012), integrating the parts into a complete painting should be more than just an assemblage of disparate parts. Regardless of the design and the complexities involved, the whole is always more strongly felt.

Stella’s art also relies on the use of ready-made shapes which are used to develop three-dimensional paintings. Despite some viewers considering it is a creative strategy in the art, the artists is always limited in terms of what he/she can do with the shapes. These limitations also distort the entire idea and the artistry plan. Therefore, it is difficult to plan ahead on what the painter needs to make and can only develop the complete idea once the painting has been completed. This explains why Stella decided to embark on abstract painting since most of his work is developed through trial and error (Linsley 2012). The painting which are developed this way usually lacks any underlying emotional connection with the viewers or any meaning whatsoever. This is the reason why Stella’s three-dimensional paintings appear as amorphous, irregular and complex (Linsley 2012).

According to Smith (2007), Franks had better chances of becoming a legendary painter if he had decided to quit when he was still ahead. This was around the mid-1970s. This was the period when Stella started making increasingly colorful and ornate aluminum reliefs. According to Smith (2007), these new methods of painting were artistic apostasy which betrayed his ascetic striped paintings which were made him popular in the 1960s. The original striped paintings he made in the 1960ss established his reputation as the premier New York Artist, and he was regarded as the main cornerstone of minimalism.

To most critiques, art is always less about time and space because Stella’s art is always weaker when one is fully around his work (Smith 2007).Apart from the brash beauty and the witty wordplay which characterizes his paintings, the bulky pieces still require the wall for both visual and conceptual support. In addition, compared to the earlier forms of painting, Stella's move towards the free-standing sculptures make his work more conventional and emotional hollow (Smith 2007). An example of such art is Frank Gehry-esque architecture.

Smith (2007) also criticizes Stella’s work including crammed gallery. The gallery forms a kind of obstacle course. These three-dimensional paintings also touch down here and there. Examples of such paintings include the Mararakech which was painted inv 1964 and Jarmolince III which Stella painted in 1973. Jarmolince II was part of the Polish Village series which signaled Stella's departure from flat canvas to three-dimensional sculptures.

Towards the end of his painting career, Stella’s work is described by critics as lacking in terms of meaning and ideas. Apart from the sheer beauty and color arrangements, the art does not communicate anything to the viewers. An example is his 1990 painting which is titled The Dart (D-15) 1X (Smith 2007). According to critics, the painting echoes Stella's severity early striper paintings. As he painted more recent ones, the nature of the paintings changed with time. A case in example is the 1995 Severinda painting which is a curving two-sided Fiberglass wall. According to Smith (2007), this piece of art looks like a graveyard for failed ideas. Critics associate Stella's poor results in his recent paintings with technology. Due to the use of the computer, Stella’s work took a different course when he started to go back to the flat surfaces. This has contributed towards the bad results which characterize his most recent work.

Stella's ideas on architecture are lost in the middle of nowhere (Smith 2007). This is because reliefts usually operate at busy intersections of sculptural, pictorial, digital and industrial ideas. However, Stella’s structures which are rather conservative forms of installation rather than architectural feel more blank and demure as compared to the frontal attack and visual overload. According to critic Paul Goldberger, Stella’s lack of interest in architectural functionality is because he is only interested in making special structures within the urban fabric. According to Smith, (2007), numerous artists have been adding the exclamation points to tattered urban fabric for many years. However, not all the artists have been successful in this quest since the paintings do very little to improve the urban life apart from being decorative pleasantries.

Conclusion

Despite the criticism which Mr. Frank Stella has received over the years, he has consistently explored the wilderness of real space to experiment various designs in the art of painting. He began his career as a driven problem solver which contributed to his successful career as an impassioned painter. Stella remains in a profound sense a painter with deep thoughts regarding his country. Stella had a brilliant beginning in the art which would see him receive various accolades and honors. His work has undergone dramatic shifts over the years attracting both enthusiastic praises as well as stern censure from his critics in equal measure (Kimball 1987). In the year 1983, Stella was appointed as the youngest artist to deliver the prestigious Charles Eliot Norton lectures at the Harvard University.

Stella’s career spans back in 1961 when he began covering square canvases. Both the new square paintings and his earlier black, copper and aluminum paintings usually draw a relationship between the 2-D picture and its 3-D support. These new shapes were also characterized by rigid symmetry, crisp regularity, and flatness. In addition, the structures tend to have an immediacy which is not found in Stella’s more recent paintings which are regarded as complicated by most critics. The use of the Squires played a critical part towards the development of Stella's painting career. The ultimate goal of using the squares in painting was to make paintings whereby the pictorial force came from the materiality. The concentric squares which he was popular in created a high standard in the art of painting. In addition, the concentric squares gave Stella an opportunity to experiment with different colors. They provided a stepping stone towards his three-dimensional wall reliefs which characterized his later work. Experimentation with different colors also enabled Stell to effortlessly appropriate the effects of illusionism. The concentric squares also enabled Stella’s art to shift towards volume.

Between1965 and1967 Stella embraced the irregular polygons which shifted his focus from the aluminum and copper paintings to more complex circular morfits and brighter palette. After embracing the brighter palette during this period, Stella also embarked on the art of paint making. This is part of his work which he cherished because he was in a position to make his preferred paint and colors to match his art. He became thew youngest painter to have a retrospective at the New York's Museum in 1970. After having an opportunity to showcase his art, Stell was able to develop his art to such as the incorporation of collage and relief into most of his paintings. From the 1990s, Franks Stella is known for making free-standing sculptures especially in public spaces as well as participating in various architectural projects. He created a decorative scheme for Toronto’s Princess of Wales Theater in 1993. Stella's art has moved from strength to strength. He has taken the criticism of his art positively by exploring alternative methods which will enhance its appeal and improve the view of the audience.

Regardless of the many criticisms, his work has received over his career spanning from the early 1960s, Stella is still regarded as the greatest living artist whose work and impact has been felt in the contemporary American society. He has inspired numerous artists in his career who took to minimalist styles which his work is known for. The artists such as Carl Andre who used Stella’s minimalist style made sculpture objects which has an industrial appearance with anonymous repeated geometric forms similar to Stella’s. Other artists such as Kenneth Noland embraced the circular motifs and shaped canvases in their art. Several important exhibitions of the 1960s art were defined by Stella’s painting. Examples of such exhibitions include Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Systemic painting. In both Europe and the United States, Stella’s painting is part of several retrospectives.



















References

Fabozzi, P., 2002. Artists, critics, context: readings in and around American art since 1945. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall.

Fried, M., 1967. Art and objecthood. [online] Available at: < http://atc.berkeley.edu/201/readings/FriedObjcthd.pdf.> [Accessed May 7, 2017].

Hobbs, R., 2002. Frank Stella, then and now. In Frank Stella: Recent Work (pp. 24-34). Singapore: Singapore Tyler Print Institute.

Judd, D., 1977. Specific objects. [online] Available at: < http://atc.berkeley.edu/201/readings/judd-so.pdf.> [Accessed May 7, 2017].

Kimball, R., 1987. Frank Stella returns to the modern. [online] Available at: https://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Frank-Stella-returns-to-the-Modern-5930. [Accessed May 7, 2017].

Linsley, R., 2012. Frank Stella. [online] Available at: https://abstractcritical.com/article/frank-stella/. [Accessed May 7, 2017].

Marshall, T., 2009. Art museums plus: cultural excursions in New England. Hanover: University Press of New England.

Michel, K., 2015. With artist Frank Stella, what you see is what you see. [online] Available at: < http://www.npr.org/2015/12/26/460862565/with-artist-frank-stella-what-you-see-is-what-you-see.> [Accessed May 7, 2017].

Smith, R., 2007. Beyond paintbrush boundaries: imagining structures in 3-D. [online] Available at: . [Accessed May 07, 2017].

Stella, F., 1986. Working space. Cambridge: Havard University Press.

Stella, F., Axsom, R., & Kolb, L., 2016. Frank Stella prints : a catalog raisonné. Portland, Oregon: Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation.

Strickland, E. (2000). Minimalism: origins. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press.



Deadline is approaching?

Wait no more. Let us write you an essay from scratch

Receive Paper In 3 Hours
Calculate the Price
275 words
First order 15%
Total Price:
$38.07 $38.07
Calculating ellipsis
Hire an expert
This discount is valid only for orders of new customer and with the total more than 25$
This sample could have been used by your fellow student... Get your own unique essay on any topic and submit it by the deadline.

Find Out the Cost of Your Paper

Get Price