Synchromy In Blanton

Synchromy in Purple Minor in Blanton by Stanton Macdonald-Wright is an abstract painting with an intention of creating a new language of art to express the musical rhythms and depicting space and color through the uses of blocks of color rather than lines and modeling like that of the Renaissance and Baroque art. Stanton Macdonald-Wright applied thin layers of dry paint in wide strokes on the canvas to create flat surfaces of color. In some regions, the painter uses the technique of drybrush to create a scratchy texture that let the under layer of white paint to show through. This created the transition from dark and intense hues to lighter shades of that hue, giving the colors a transparent quality. Although chiaroscuro modeling is not used,

The figure of the woman seems to be backed up by no background but a white void. This sense of emptiness distantly resemble oriental Chinese painting. The figure seems to dissolve into the void. The composition is integrated and the painting seems harmonious and dynamic due to the curvilinear lines formed by the edges of flat color blocks. There seems to be musical rhythm to the painting. Similar to Picasso’s Seated Woman, Wright is trying to depict the underlying substructure of the body instead of the form of the woman as seen by the eye. While Picasso’s work is comprised of cubic grids, Wright’s painting is more organic and comprises of curves formed by the boundaries of color. The title of the artwork---Synchromy in Purple Minor, shows the painter’s interest and focus on the exploration of color in an unprecedented way. He is using color to convey sense of space and create synesthetic sound and rhythm. Like Kandinsky, Wright is also trying to create sound and rhythm through abstract painting. They both seeks freedom from the traditional art’s narrative and description of the literal visual world. Trying to free painting from the limitation of representational association, Wright focus on the juxtaposition and reverberation of pure primary and secondary