Open Letter To Artists (From An Art Critic) - Part 19
by Joan Altabe - 12/29/2006

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Irregularly-shaped Paintings

Shaped canvases, the kind that Frank Stella is famed for, where are they? You'd think that 21st century art, known for liberating art from confining canons, would have more shaped canvases to show for itself.

Stella's uprising against the squared-off picture plane, his making painting into an object by shaping it asymmetrically, activated whole wall spaces. Why haven't more painters taken to this idea?

The idea isn't even all that revolutionary when you think about it. Even though the 13th century painter Cimabue rendered stiff and flat religious images (e.g. "Madonna Enthroned with Angels"), he shaped his pictures' planes after the contours of altars. Ditto 14th century's Andrea Di Bartolo, who did this with his "Christ in Benediction." Painters like these saw the big picture – the one past the edges of their work.

Probably Stella got his awareness of walls because he used to be a house painter. And likely Di Bartolo became sensitive to walls from making paintings for large church interiors.

The shaped painting idea may even be said to be older than the Renaissance. I'm thinking of early Greek pottery, the amphorae of the 6th century B.C. Imagery in vase paintings from this time consistently conforms to their shapes.

Clearly all these painters paid a mind to context, the environment in which their pictures sit. And just as clearly, most painters today don't. Instead, they focus on their own world, their own painting surfaces, disconnected from their surroundings.

This, even though it makes all the sense in the world to shape canvases as one would clay. If you can paint objects, why not make objects out of pictures? Why not make canvases do something else besides square off?

Trevor Bell, a contemporary artist out of Leeds is one who follows this logic. The good part is that he ends up with something that logic is not known for – a serenade. Bell's work teeters on the edge between reality and abstraction. His paintings may fit in a slot marked "abstract," but with an extra label that would read "fresh view."

His mindfulness of the world around him plays into his work, such as what he describes as "the eroded and broken edges of cliffs."

Granted, Bell's idea of breaking out of the box that canvases usually form and making an abstract painting into an object can be attributed to Stella. But while Stella's painted forms come across rigid for their hard geometric edges, Bell's objects arc and swerve the way his brushwork does – free and with feeling.

So the question: why haven't more painters taken to shaping their canvases, making the point that their pictures are, in the end, physical objects? Why haven't more painters disregarded the rectangular limits of traditional picture-making?

Note: This is not meant as an adversarial question. Just wondering is all. After all, irregularly shaped canvases don't so much adorn walls, they hold sway over them.

Your thoughts are welcome, as always.

— Joan Altabe | December 29, 2006

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