II : 29

Two Variants in the same palette. At the left the gray submerges although it encloses the center; at the right the gray dominates the center.

Without comparison and choice there is no evaluation. And why are we afraid that thinking and planning — necessary in all human activities — will spoil painting? The saying that the freshness of the first sketch cannot be repeated — is admitting impotence.

Again we need — in art as in other human activities — more than mere self-disclosure (usually but wrongly called self-expression) or entertainment of startling effects and exciting accidents.
From paint to painting seems a small step. It is so only orally and aurally. Instead, it means a change from colorant to color.

Take, for instance, pure Viridian. As long as it presents itself just as Viridian, it remains a colorant, that is, paint. As soon as it becomes questionable whether it is pure, tinted, shaded, or mixed with other colors, and as soon as it appears perceptually not there, where it wants to stay, it changes from paint to color. This change is the result of relatedness. In painting, this happens when color in a mutual give-and-take with other colors (or other formative means) does more or less than it wants to do independently; namely, when interdependence results in contrast and affinity, both of which can go beyond all so-called harmony.

Consequently, in painting, the physical properties of color are of less interest than the psychic effect. What color is is of less concern than what it does. Painting is color acting. To act is to change character and behavior, mood and tempo. An actor makes us forget his name and individual features. He deceives us and functions as another than himself.

Acting, and therefore active, color loses identity, appearing as another color, lighter or darker, more or less intensive, brighter or duller, warmer or cooler, thinner and lighter or thicker and heavier, higher and nearer or deeper and farther away; opaque turns translucent, joining colors appear overlapping each other. When color acts, we never can tell what color it is. The ratio of effort to effect is decisive in science, industry, and business, in politics and what it may lead to. Why not in Art?

As equality is nonexistent, physically and mentally, the principle of equal possession remains utopia.
As the center of interest shifts from having to being, from static possessing to dynamic acting, psychology is getting ahead of economics.
This has been recognized and demonstrated in leading branches of art today, namely, architecture and typography. There simplification and intensification have been applied as a remedy against an increasing and unbearable complexity of living, where, after a naked economical functionalism, the value of esthetics and the meaning of form are recognized again.

So economy, again, is a principle of action instead of possession.

The ratio of effort to effect is a respected principle of construction in engineering. It should be considered a measure for all planning.
Therefore, I apply it in my teaching of design as well as in developing my own compositions and constructions. This principle functions not only as a measure of economy but, more important, as a means of discipline as well as of simplification, intensification.

I know such considerations frighten those believing that art springs mostly from the subconscious. I believe that thinking is necessary in art as everywhere else, and that a clear head is never in the way of genuine feelings, but of so-called feelings, which, unfortunately, are too often prejudices. J. A., 1949.
(From Ives-Stillman: Ten Variants, 1967.)