JOSEF ALBERS (1888-1976)

“It is easy to be delighted by the unique harmonies Albers exacts from the spectrum, and easy to be drawn into the subtle optical movement. But it is not so easy to verbalize the emotional response. One could follow Albers’ directions and analyze each of the color elisions and distinctions in a scientific, experimental mode. But the increment of feeling these paintings undeniably emanate remains outside of such considerations. A tender pale, pale orange square suspended in neutrals, or a brilliant canary yellow played against a white are compelling because of their paradox: they speak of mystical fixity and yet they move, they breathe, they take on the lineaments of organic being. Albers paints squares, and in his obsessive fixations, paints more than squares,” (D. Ashton, quoted in Josef Albers: Minimal means, maximum effect, Madrid, 2014, p. 333).