Audio Program excerpt
Lilian Tone

MoMA2000: Open Ends (1960–2000)

September 28, 2000–March 4, 2001

Lilian Tone:

Abstract Expressionism is often called action painting. But Barnett Newman was one of several Abstract Expressionists who eliminated the signs of the artist's hand. He preferred to work with broad, even expanses of color, as he does here in The Voice. The paint—egg tempera and enamel—is applied so evenly that the only hint of texture comes from the weave of the canvas itself. The broad expanse of white is interrupted only by an off–center stripe of slightly darker white. Similar stripes figure in most of Newman's paintings; he called them "zips."

Scale is important in The Voice. If you stand a few feet from it, you'll find that it creates an engulfing environment, filling your field of vision almost entirely, as Newman intended. Like Kazimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian before him, Newman believed in the spiritual content of abstract art. Although his paintings appear to focus on issues of form, such as shape and color, he insisted that they had symbolic meanings—meanings which he hints at in his titles but never made explicit.