Ryman reduced his painting to the strict minimum: the square format and the colour white. He permutated and varied these constants by manipulating scale and texture. Small and large formats were arranged on the same wall and all sorts of media were applied to a variety of supports so that the results were always different. Ryman demonstrated that pictorial complexity can be achieved by using an extremely restricted vocabulary. He sought to heighten the viewer’s sensitivity to subtle variations in the brushwork, surfaces and materials employed as well as the relation of the painted areas to the edges of the support. He also insisted on the relation of the painting to the wall on which it hangs, either by attaching it very closely, even to the point of painting the wall itself, or by detaching it in a visually obvious way. From 1976 he incorporated the hanging system into the composition of the picture, using metal fastenings whose function is both visual and practical. Close to Minimal art, Ryman’s work may be distinguished from it by the importance he gave to the painted surface and to the painter’s touch, using these as essential elements in his highly refined examination of the optical and material properties of the painting discipline.
Alfred Pacquement
From Grove Art Online
? 2009 Oxford University Press
www.moma.org/collection/artist.php