An interesting feature of repetitive geometric art that took me a long time to appreciate is that the discipline of getting an even cover of paint in a highly repetitive painting is surely very difficult.
Take Bridget Riley - we are so used to how mechanical painting (that is, 'printing') makes getting such even cover, and straight lines trivial that doing it by hand seems no more impressive.
Relatedly, I didn't "get" Rothko's paintings until I saw one in real life last year. Easy to look at through a screen and not get the effect that it has, what with everything on the screen being so pixel perfect. For me, looking at those Rothko's in real life had me thinking there was a pattern in the color somewhere just out of reach for me, that if I looked closer I could see a pixel or catch a line somewhere that would tell me what was really driving all the colors. It drew me in in person in a way that it simply could not via the screen or some sort of other reproduction. What he did with colors is magical and the stories around others calling it easy or trivial to do and then failing hard themselves are also fun to consider afterwards.
gilleain · 1h ago
Totally agree. I used to really dislike Rothko paintings as I fell into the same trap of thinking there was 'nothing to it'. Well, try actually painting something with so few colours, and essentially no geometry. It's really hard to make something that looks good!
sans_souse · 5h ago
My first thought upon seeing the first picture and the header; [https://youtu.be/IyVj9sKldWg](Max Cooper - Repetition)
Take Bridget Riley - we are so used to how mechanical painting (that is, 'printing') makes getting such even cover, and straight lines trivial that doing it by hand seems no more impressive.
https://www.moma.co.uk/how-to-paint-like-bridget-riley/