Spontaneous Lines

It is unsurprising that, historically, black as a color has been linked to somberness, melancholy and madness, but the history of this color is so much more nuanced than that. From the thick black strokes creating spontaneous lines in Edouard Manet's Music in the Tuileries (1862) to Anish Kapoor gaining the rights to Vantablack (the darkest shade of black at the time) in 2016, the use of black line has captured the artist's obsessions for centuries. Pierre Soulages used black line as a way to provide texture to his paintings, playing with how black and light interact upon the canvas. Whilst Mark Rothko revered the simplicity of color and line, and their rightful place in the history of abstract art, as a link between the emoting artist and their expression on the canvas – regardless of whether that emotion was dark or not. Line is the ultimate factor of definition and declaration, thus, unsurprisingly it is used instinctively by the artist. In Artsper's own selection of works, the likes of Moon Shin and Gérard Escougnou have been noted for their use of spontaneous lines. In fact, Escougnou uses black lines to emit vibrations from his work, with white used as a void or a moment of silence. Lines can cause the viewer to become introspective and reflective, a way for the viewer to relate to a work and the artist's reasons for creating it.