Guest Lichtenbergian: Helen Frankenthaler

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“Mountains and Sea,” Frankenthaler (1952)

Over at Artsy.net, there is a lovely article on artist Helen Frankenthaler. You should go read it, if for no other reason than to STEAL FROM THE BEST.

I particularly liked the headers they used:

  • Lesson #1: Try everything and experiment often

  • Lesson #2: Give yourself prompts, but don’t become married to them

  • Lesson #3: Approach color expansively

  • Lesson #4: Let mistakes lead to invention

It’s like they read the book, you know?

Or better yet, it’s like Lichtenbergianism, for all its goofiness, is exactly what real artists do. I even say this in the book: nothing I am promoting is remotely new. It’s just the way creative people work. The value of Lichtenbergianism is that it helps those of us who are wary of the process to be less afraid, to be more forgiving of mistakes, and to trash the entire concept of “perfect.”

But Dale, I hear you begin to object, of course Frankenthaler and Pollock and Rauschenberg had to lean into the whole randomness and “mistakes are good” thing: wasn’t the whole point that they didn’t have control over their work in progress?

Two things:

  1. Neither do you. You’re just not slopping paint onto a canvas. (If you are, then what are you complaining about?)

  2. Conversely, yes they did have control over their work. At every step of the way, they were making decisions about materials, colors, direction, amount, force, and a host of other things. Each dribble of paint was an ABORTIVE ATTEMPT, followed by GESTALT and SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION.

And you. You’re standing there with a bucket of red paint in your hand, forever dithering over where or how or when or whether to fling it onto the canvas.

And by “you,” I mean “me.” Get to work! Fling the paint!

Let mistakes lead to invention.