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拍品专文
In his numerological paintings such as the present example, Alfred Jensen constructed intricate systems based on the Mayan calendar, astrology and other divination systems, architectural drawings from Greek temples and Egyptian pyramids, and other information sourced from mysticism and the occult, in addition to scientific data that revealed the mechanisms of the universe, such as electromagnetic waves, mathematical concepts and planetary movement. The artist arranged huge quantities of information in polychromic grid formats or detailed diagrams painted in a thick, luscious impasto that gave these complex theories a material presence. The Solar Calendar 9 Years of 360 presents one of these systems in alternating rows of even and odd numbers beginning with the number “2.” The sequence in the next column was determined by subtracting five—itself considered a magic number because it is representative of the five elements (earth, air, water, fire and ether)—from the last number in the previous column. Each row is a veritable rainbow, alternating between the nine colors of the visible color spectrum and is framed by a black border inscribed by white text. The discovery of Goethe's concept of the duality of color, an idea that black and white struggled between opposition and balance, guided Jensen’s painterly choices formally and philosophically. Jensen saw colors not as a sequence but as they engage each other, an idea supported by theories found in physics and metaphysical practices alike.
In deciphering the numerical systems art historian and retired curator from the Museum of Modern Art, William Agee advised to remember Jensen’s choice of profession. “For above all Jensen was a painter, a working, disciplined painter engaged in the making of works of art. He was not a mathematician, an anthropologist, or a philosopher, and certainly not a mystic, or an eccentric, but a painter, one of the highest accomplishment. His content is deeply embedded in the paint and color, for the systems generate and determine the painting, as an organic and vital force; they are literally inseparable, as part of the language of paint, with structure and subject held in a dynamic, creative tension of opposing forces, the dualities of life in which Jense so deeply believed (W. Agee, “Al Jensen and the Traditions of the Modern,” Alfred Jensen: The Number Paintings, New York, 2006, p. 8).
In deciphering the numerical systems art historian and retired curator from the Museum of Modern Art, William Agee advised to remember Jensen’s choice of profession. “For above all Jensen was a painter, a working, disciplined painter engaged in the making of works of art. He was not a mathematician, an anthropologist, or a philosopher, and certainly not a mystic, or an eccentric, but a painter, one of the highest accomplishment. His content is deeply embedded in the paint and color, for the systems generate and determine the painting, as an organic and vital force; they are literally inseparable, as part of the language of paint, with structure and subject held in a dynamic, creative tension of opposing forces, the dualities of life in which Jense so deeply believed (W. Agee, “Al Jensen and the Traditions of the Modern,” Alfred Jensen: The Number Paintings, New York, 2006, p. 8).