Geometry: Painting)."That is how Reinhardt's painting were perceived and how they're still often seen. Ad Reinhardt's Paintings, as well as the paintings of Joseph Albers, Brice Marden, John McLaughlin and other "color field/minimalist painters, were often greeted with great hostility and misunderstanding. Especially when they were exhibited for the first time. Hostility seems to be a reasonable reaction to most color field painting due to frustration. The frustration of not being sure what you're seeing. You could almost feel conned by assumed simplicity of the canvas and paint. The paintings seem to be nothing more than shapes of color. Many viewers of Reinhardt's paintings, even today, will blurt out a harsh comment in passing through the museum's contemporary wing. They're not sure if they should stare at the canvas or the floor, or keep walking. When Reinhardt was working on these geometric paintings, gestural abstraction was going in full force. Artists like De Kooning, Raushenburg, Pollack and Johns were all working in the abstract expression. The New York School of painting was at its prime. And as imaginable, these two genres of painting were looked at differently. Some favored gestural and others went towards the geometric abstractions. There was definitely some influence on both sides. Within the artists world at that time, there was much controversy. In Abstraction: Geometry: Painting, Reinhardt's position in the New York scene as a geometric painter is brought to light with a remark by Morton Feldmen, a composer who was involved with the New York painters. "The scene was not as it appeared, at least in the press. The party line was that these guys were like a fraternity of gorillas with paint-filled squirt guns. It was a lot more considered and not as "expressionist" as it might appear. Barney [Newman] wasn't flinging any paint for Christ's sake. He was tight, very considered, essentially geometric. He'd roll over in his gr...
