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National Art Education Association Hot Vibrations in Cool Color Author(s): Burton Wasserman Source: Art Education, Vol. 24, No. 9 (Dec., 1971), pp. 26-27 Published by: National Art Education Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3191655 . Accessed: 15/06/2014 09:28 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . National Art Education Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Art Education. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 62.122.79.90 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 09:28:29 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Hot Vibrations in Cool Color

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Page 1: Hot Vibrations in Cool Color

National Art Education Association

Hot Vibrations in Cool ColorAuthor(s): Burton WassermanSource: Art Education, Vol. 24, No. 9 (Dec., 1971), pp. 26-27Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3191655 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 09:28

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

National Art Education Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to ArtEducation.

http://www.jstor.org

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Page 2: Hot Vibrations in Cool Color

' V~ a O\ S

C O'O C (O O

to one another until a stage of saturation is reached, Anuszkiewicz follows the opposite path. His intensity of expression is gained by a deductive process, working constantly toward abbreviation until a basic common denominator of visual vitality has been reached.

Burton Wasserman

For a spicy retinal diet, paintings by Richard Anuszkiewicz are most likely to curry favor with anyone sporting a hungry eye. Quite recently, they were on view in the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton.

Even when you stand fifteen feet away from them, Anuszkiewicz's paintings reach out and touch you. Pulsing with power like an electric generator, they send out waves of energy so potent you can feel the tingle from a distance. Be-

cause they vibrate so vividly, they remain deeply printed, like psychological after- images, upon the memory.

Anuszkiewicz's paintings are superb examples of absolute purity in form and color. Neither symbols nor representations appear. If they did, they would only distract you from the concentrated seeing- feeling experience that awaits you in the painted forms of each composition.

While many artists gain the richness of their effects by adding details and colors

Yet, dazzling though they are, optical effects alone are not the whole story of Anuszkiewicz's accomplishments; there is also an awesome sense of mystery in his work. Silently, drifting in a suspended state, somewhere behind the multicolored surfaces, a haunting presence may be felt. It glows with a flickering remoteness like the twinkling of distant stars in an endless sky. Clearly, Anuszkiewicz does much more than make lively arrangements filled with skip-beat notes of jiggling color. He creates icons that invite you to

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Page 3: Hot Vibrations in Cool Color

ponder the universe. His paintings provide just the right focus upon which you may fasten your attention. If you rivet your eyes on his work and keep them there, you soon find yourself floating in a stretch of space that can only be entered through the exercise of sustained concentration.

Yet for all of the elusive mysticism, there is also a tough-minded logic about Anuszkiewicz's work. There can be no deviation from the appearance presented by any one of his paintings. All the parts of his designs fit together with absolute precision.

The notion of functionality is central to all of Anuszkiewicz's art. He never assembles a constellation of colors and shapes simply because they are pretty or because people may enjoy looking at them

(though it is hardly a fault if they do). Instead, he selects and combines the elements of form that make up any given composition because they "work" together.

Frontal directness is another striking feature found in his language of vision. Every canvas is capable of maintaining a continued confrontation with any spectator. The image never turns away. You look at it, and it looks right back at you as forcefully and convincingly as anything you will ever see anywhere.

The overall format of Anuszkiewicz's work tends toward symmetry. You might expect images based upon such an even- tempered balance to be dull and static. But, they aren't. Each symmetrical arrangement acts like a foil to the oscillating variations of color. Without the grid-like

cage for contrast, the colors would never possess the zip and dash they have.

Beyond the pulse-beats and fluctuating shimmer of his colors, the distinguishing hallmark of the Anuszkiewicz touch is his sense of self-discipline. It is evident in everything he does. While his heart and mind give free rein to a rich and lively imagination, they also impose authority and control on the final outcome of every finished design. Anuszkiewicz the man is always in complete control of his medium.

His paintings have integrity and independence; they never pretend to be anything else. Everything that matters is out in the open- -ready to be shared with others.

Burton Wasserman is professor of art, Glassboro State College, Glassboro, New Jersey.

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