Then Associate (now Emeritus) Professor of Art History at the University of California, Sheldon Nodelman carries out a compact, intelligent study of the work displayed in Marden, Novros, Rothko: Painting in the Age of Actuality, a 1975 exhibition at Rice University. In this dense but lucid text, Nodelman mainly focuses on the Rothko Chapel paintings, but also engages in compelling analysis of Marden’s and Novros’ works and exposition on their relationships to Rothko. Nodelman first introduces the artistic problems Rothko faced in the 1960s: the liquidation of pictorial illusionism as demonstrated by artists like Frank Stella; notions of the spectator as participant; painting as installation, etc. With this context established, Nodelman proceeds into a detailed visual study of the three artists’ works that elegantly unites meticulous description and theoretical understanding. This articulate examination accentuates how, for example, the exhibited paintings stage an interplay between peripheral and focused vision, pursue pictorial actuality, and reverse pictorial address outward into the world.
In their endeavours to construct a new pictorial economy, Nodelman contends that these artists challenged the prevailing analytical distinctions that privileged differentiation of artwork by primary modes of sensory address and instead argues for a pivot towards engaging the arts’ ultimate address to consciousness. For its lightweight size, the monograph is not a light read, but its clarity and concision facilitate a smooth digestion of its rewarding insights.