Cathedral
Artist
Theodoros Stamos
(Greek/American, 1922 - 1997)
Date1949-1950
MediumOil on masonite
Dimensions51 1/4 x 25 5/8 in.
ClassificationsOil Painting
Credit LineGeneral Purchase Fund
Terms
Object number1992.01
DescriptionWhen Stamos created "Cathedral", he was twenty-seven years old. Remarkably, it corresponds in style, content, and maturity of expression to the contemporaneous production of his older peers Adoph Gottlieb and William Baziotes. Like these painters, who were among the first generation of the Abstract Expressionists, Stamos sought to explore mythic and primordial imagery as a means of discovering universal truths about nature and human experience. (1) In the diffused painterly light in "Cathedral", figures with blurred outlines appear to float ambiguously within the picture space. As in William Baziotes's works of this period, the density and palpable aspects of Stamos's pictorial composition suggest an underwater setting, which is in keeping with both artists' acute interest in lower, primal forms of life. (2) In contrast to Baziotes's preference for atmospheric dreamscapes, Stamos preferred a more literal mode of paint application-most evident, in the case of Cathedral, in the dragging of a large brush in the upper left section of the work-that presents the beholder with a different set of interpretive options. In addition to a color scheme that incorporates various shades of gray, off-white, and brown, the jagged edges of the central forms might imply a vision of a subterranean cave or an abstracted architectural image, as the title of the picture suggests.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Ralph Pomeroy, "Stamos" (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1972); Robert Metzger, "Abstract Expressionism Lives," exhib. cat. (Stamford, Conn.: Stamford Museum and Nature Center, 1982), pp. 5-12; Sam Hunter, "Theodoros Stamos: History and Recent Paintings," "Arts Magazine 62" (Summer 1988): 56-59; Stamos, "Theodoros Stamos: Works from 1945-1984" (New York: Turske and Turske, 1991).
Notes:
1.. Pomeroy, "Stamos," pp. 9-10.
2.. See Sam Hunter, "Theodoros Stamos," pp. 57-59
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