"Motherwell described his Elegies to the Spanish Republic series as a 'lamentation or funeral song' for what was lost in the Spanish Civil War of the late 1930s. 'It seemed to me that something beautiful and marvelous had died, at least temporarily, in that conflict,' he said. All the works share a visual motif: black ovals wedged between black rectangles. The compose the central chapter in the artist's career; between 1947 and 1968 Motherwell created more than 100 works in the series."
The Little Spanish Prison, 1941-44
Personage, with Yellow Ochre and White, 1947
"The thick, encrusted surface of Personage reveals that Motherwell created it through countless applications of thick paint. Describing his working process during this period, the artist wrote, 'I begin painting with a series of mistakes. The painting comes out of the correction of mistakes by feeling. I begin with shapes and colors, which are not related internally nor to the external world; I work without images.'"
I really enjoy Robert Motherwell (American, 1915-1991), and especially that description above. Exactly.
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