The Bay

The Bay. Helen Frankenthaler. 1963 C.E. Acrylic on canvas.

• Heaving, atmospheric painting; we see an imposing fluid blue promontory suspended in front of us. Its colors ranging from violet to indigo run into one another; Frankenthaler’s approach here was to use a soak-stain method with diluted acrylic paint.
• Acrylics gave her more flexibility with viscosity and movement than oils, and allowed her more control; as a substitute for the action of the brush, Frankenthaler would lift the canvas and tilt it at various angles so that the paint would flow across the surface. 
• She had to account for gravity and the ebb and flow of a liquid across a flat surface, so a fascinating aspect of Frankenthaler’s method is the blend of the artist’s control paired with the unpredictability of the forces of nature.
• Frankenthaler was inspired by the drip method of Jackson Pollock who began painting on the floor in the late 1940s, but she knew she wanted to work differently. 
• The colors on the canvas don’t have to represent something in particular, but can have a more ambiguous, emblematic quality for the viewer. 
• The basic act of responding to color, the way one would respond to a sunset, or to light from a stained-glass window, simplicity and pure emotion through clarity of color and form.