Steir, Pat (2005). Summer Moon [oil on canvas]. Cheim & Read, New York.

I would make the argument that this is certainly a work of fine art, but I believe it’s also a good example of a work that would be less accessible to those who are not interested in formal artistic dialog. I.e., it is a mess with a sloppy splotch smeared from top to bottom. However, I see a background texture treated with the perfect color purity to cause the subject to “jump out” and almost hover on the picture plain. This is also because of the stronger definition of its forms and the complimentary and pure treatment of its colors. For me, identifying the position of the viewer is not strictly possible. However, the mass seems to be suspended in air, the background imitating a forest, putting the viewer on the ground, diminished, and looking up into the “sky”. This is assuming a large scale of the elements in the picture plane. | 

The subject seems to be the treatment of line to create field and ground; the implied force of gravity causes a pure mass of color to stretch into brittle lines imitated and repeated by the ground. Point, line, color, value and purity effectively summarize the elemental structure. The use of point seems to converge to a lop-sided area above the optical center. The implication is that many of these tiny pure shaded green points collected to cause a single mass to form that could not resist gravity. Tinted and impure complements texture the background, and the only element used to create this texture is vertical lines. 

The color scheme is tetradic: impure orange and blue on the background gradient, pure green and red on the field. The rendering of this work bisects it into two roughly equal horizontal halves. It does not have a sense of vertical static balance; the treatment of the subject has a strong downward thrust. This work is a study of proportional balance: The attributes of the field are outnumbered by the ground, however the calibration of qualities like color purity and value bring both into a sense of visual balance. This work is thoroughly dominated by the use of vertical, brittle lines. The only differing shape to compare line to is point, and it does not effectively compete. Eye movement starts at the subject, follows its downward motion, then swirls around the background and back to the subject again. 

Unity seems to be achieved; economy may not be perfect, but is balanced effectively. It’s possible the downward green strokes do not number enough, however their current (and final) treatment gives the impression that the mass has not had long to begin to separate.