Study for Homage to the Square is a glowing example from the series that both defined Josef Albers career and twentieth century abstraction. Albers devoted over two decades of his life to his Homages to the Square series, which remains one of art history’s greatest investigations into the perception of colour. Starting the series in 1950 and relentlessly pursuing it until his death in 1976, Alber’s paintings presented concentric squares of differing hues, fixed compositions that allowed Albers’s to rigorously dissect the chromatic spectrum. Though Albers titled his paintings ‘Homage to the Square’, he viewed the shape as a vector for exploring the relationship between different tonalities: the square was simply “a stabilising form” subservient to his ‘craziness’ for colour (J. Albers, quoted in N. Welliver, ‘Albers on Albers’, Art News, Vol. 64 No. 9, January 1966, p. 69). The Homage to the Square paintings serve as a sustained, serial investigation into rhythm, mood, and spatial movement.
"We are able to hear a single tone. But we almost never (that is without special devices) see a single color unrelated to changing neighbors and changing conditions"
Albers was diligent and exact about his design process, sticking to the same technique for the 26 years of his Homage explorations. Applying carefully selected paints to Masonite - the hard non-absorbent surface allowed the shades to vibrate, like “platters to serve colour” (Josef Albers, quoted in Nicholas Fox Weber, ‘Josef Albers,’ Josef Albers, Milan, 1988, p. 10). Pairing particular tones and carefully documenting their usage in sketches and notes on the reverse of his Masonite boards, Albers became part artist, part scientist. Observing, testing and celebrating the varying combinations and psychological effects of colour within his rigorously calculated geometric compositions, Albers considered the intensities, luminosities and often deceptive nature of tonalities.
Yellow was an important colour in Albers’ exploration of the spectrum, he considered yellow a colour of curing, caring and uplift. The artist was deeply influenced by Goethe's Theory of Color (1810), which placed yellow "among the luminous and active colors." Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Goethe: The collects ed Works Volume 12, Scientific Studies, ed. and trans. Douglas E. Miller (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 279. However, Albers’ use of yellow was most notably inspired by his t.mes spent in Mexico. Escaping his teaching post at Black Mountain College, North Carolina, Albers arrived in La Luz, Mexico, in 1947. The architecturally-balanced temples and sun-soaked buildings of Latin America had a profound influence on the artist, drenching many of his subsequent Homages in golden hues. Four tonal bands, carefully aligned in width and position, draw the viewer in to Study for Homage to the Square. Progressively lightening and saturating as the squares move into the centre of the canvas, the present work mirrors that of a sunrise or sunset. As if Albers is capturing dawn or dusk over the La Luz horizon, the central yellow radiates like the sun rising and setting. The Homages gave birth to an extraordinary range of chromatic effects – or ‘climates’ – that, for many, possessed deeply emotive and even spiritual qualities. As Hans Arp once wrote, ‘They contain simple, great stat.mes nts such as: I’m standing here. I’m resting here. I’m in the world and on earth. I’m in no hurry to move on. While Mark Rothko sought transcendence, Albers looked for fulfilment here on earth’ (H. Arp, quoted in W. Schmied, ‘Fifteen Notes on Josef Albers’, in Josef Albers, exh. cat., The Mayor Gallery, London, 1989, pp. 9-10).
There is a simplicity of design, sleekness of execution and amalgamation of sumptuous colour and form, which are characteristic of Albers’ paintings. Study for Homage to the Square is a celebration of the infinite possibilities of colour.