Proposition Number 1

Allan D'Arcangelo

1966

A large canvas painted in synthetic polymer in which D'Arcangelo reduces a landscape to a flat, geometric white plane pierced by a tiny central “window,” compelling the viewer into a contrived roadside perspective.

What hits you first is the severe, hard-edged geometry — a vast white square with diagonal lines pulling your eye into a minute colored rectangle at the center, set against bands of sky-blue, lime-green and black that read like horizon, field and road.

Made in 1966, this work bridges Pop and Minimalist concerns by using industrial paint and highway imagery to expose how modern visual culture frames and flattens experience, and to make the act of looking itself a subject.

Palette

Art Terms

Acrylic paint Canvas Painting Pop art Minimalism Landscape Geometric abstraction

Exhibitions

What is Modern Painting?

1945

The New American Painting as Shown in Eight European Countries 1958...

1959

American Prints from the International Program

1971

A Century of Modern Drawing, 1881–1981

1982