This summer I had the opportunity to see the Gorky exhibit at the LA MOCA 3 times. He is an amazing painter, particularly after 1942. His pre 1942 work is derivative, I believe. Not that there are not some fine pieces before 1942, but, something happened in 1942 and 1943 that made Gorky find his song. His painting became looser, thinner, and much more gestural. He never went back to his cubist thick paint. I believe it was Roberto Matta who encouraged Gorky to be Gorky. Matta got him to paint thin and to paint using the surrealist subconscious. You feel this in Gorky’s work after 1943. He is moving his whole arm, his whole body and his whole self. Just by becoming thinner, he goes deeper and the marks feel more felt and they mean that much more. Before, in his earlier work, his mind was in control but now his feelings are the catalyst and his mind works in conjunction with these memories, these inclinations, these deep emotions.
It is easy to see he was influenced by Miro and Kandinsky, but it is also easy to see Cezanne’s influence. The paint handling is not as tight as Miro or loose as Kandinsky but more disciplined like Cezanne. Even more than Cezanne, Gorky can walk an edge of chaos and still hold his balance.
Nothing is overdone in Gorky. Nothing hurried. There is gesture with restraint that makes you feel the power of a coiled spring. He uses the whole canvas to weave rhythms of complex but simple movements and color. There is no minimalism here. It is full bodied opposition of deep and shallow space, thin and thick paint, vague and exact edges, fluid line, simple and elegant shapes. His drawing of lines act as a scaffold, and he dances color in, around, over, through and under these lines. Everything vibrates on the verge, but in the end, you feel the order of a sine wave.
