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Study for Homage to the Square: "High Spring" (work of art)

Artwork Info

Created
1962
Artist
Josef Albers
Nationality
American (born Germany)
Birth/Death
1880-1976
Dimensions
40 x 40 in.
(101.6 x 101.6 cm)

Credit

Gift of the Artist

Object Number
G.70.13.1
Culture
American North Carolina
Classification
Paintings
Department
Modern

Key Ideas

  • This painting is part of the artist’s Homage to the Square series. The series includes more than 1,000 paintings of nested squares that explore how different colors interact with one other. Based on the colors Albers used, his squares appear to move toward or away from the viewer. 
  • Albers kept careful notes about the paint colors he used in each painting. He often wrote these notes on the backs of his paintings. 
  • The artist was a color theorist who wrote a bestselling book about color and how to teach color theory.
  • Albers taught art for 35 years. In 1933 he became the first art teacher at Black Mountain College in North Carolina.

Learn More

Josef Albers created this painting as part of his Homage to the Square series. The series explores human perceptions of color and how different colors or hues interact with one another. Homage to the Square includes over 1,000 paintings of squares that appear to expand and recede. The simple shapes allow the colors to be the focus of the painting. 

“Every perception of colour is an illusion…we do not see colors as they really are. In our perception they alter one another.” -Josef Albers 

His approach to painting was careful and mathematical. Albers applied paints directly from the tube using a palette knife, and he wrote the names of the colors he used on the backs of his canvases. His “optical illusion” paintings helped influence the optical, or op art, movement. Op artists used geometric shapes, abstract patterns, and contrasting colors to create artworks that trick the eye. 

Albers was an influential artist and art teacher. He taught at the Bauhaus, a famous design school in Germany, until the Nazis closed it in 1933. He then sought refuge in the United States and was hired as the first art teacher at Black Mountain College. This liberal arts school near Asheville, North Carolina, emphasized art as an essential part of learning. In 1963 Albers wrote a book titled Interaction of Color. It is still a bestseller that is used in teaching visual arts today. 

tags: order, part/whole, perception, problem solving, variation, shapes, math, NC art, NC artist, North Carolina

Additional Resources

Resources for Teachers: 

 

Resources for Students:

Images

  • A painting of four nested squares. The innermost square is turquoise. It is surrounded by a dark gray square, which is surrounded by a light gray square. The light gray square is surrounded by a lime green square.

    Study for Homage to the Square: "High Spring"

  • A painting of four nested squares. The innermost square is turquoise. It is surrounded by a dark gray square, which is surrounded by a light gray square. The light gray square is surrounded by a lime green square.

    Albers’ inscription on the back of the painting, documenting which paints he used.