Franz Kline's "Torches Mauve"

 Franz Kline’s “Torches Mauve”

            “Torches Mauve” has an extremely powerful presence in the Abstract Expressionist room at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  The vertical canvas stands 10’x6’ forcing the viewer to look up and see Kline’s majestic brushwork.  The painting consists of roughly three dominant colors black, white and mauve (hence the title of the painting).  The colors are mainly very saturated, out- of–the-tube colors except when the purplish color gets mixed with the whites and blacks.  Color was not particularly common for Kline and much of his work has a very graphic quality consisting of strictly black and white paint.  The painting was done in the year 1961 towards the end of Kline’s life when he started introducing color back into his paintings.  The title of the painting comes from the name of his friend Joseph Torch.  Torch owned an art store in New York City and sold Franz Kline various paints, including the color mauve used for this painting.

            Franz Kline was born in 1910 and reached the height of his career around the 1950’s.  Like many of the Abstract Expressionists Kline painted landscapes and other subjects from life before turning to abstraction.  He is most well known for his enormous black and white paintings, which contain multiple turbulent strokes of black paint on a white background.  The black masses in Kline’s paintings were influenced by the dark shadows in the paintings by El Greco, Rembrandt and Velazquez, as well as the graphic prints by Goya, Daumier and Durer.  Kline actually produced many of his paintings by carefully projecting small sketches onto huge canvases.  He would then fill in the dark areas with thick black paint often referencing industrial landscapes, bridges, railroads and many other products of the Industrial Revolution.

            “Torches Mauve” was a later work of Kline’s.   Flames came to mind when I viewed the painting and the fact that he uses the word “torches” in the title may suggest a burning structure of some sort.  I was immediately drawn to the huge vertical black mass in the center top ¾ of the painting.  The black mass contains two angular patches of purple color, which drew me in further.  After seeing the black mass, I turned my attention to the left and right and was engulfed by the frenzied brushwork with the purple/mauve color.  With or without color, Kline’s paintings have immense power.  The verticality of the piece makes it even more intense to look at, and being in its presence is a very overwhelming experience.  Franz Kline was known to paint with brooms in order to cover the large areas as quick as possible.  The spontaneity of painting to capture emotion was a very common practice among the Abstract Expressionists.

            Overall, Franz Kline’s paintings may seem very simple but like any great artist, a lot of work over many years gave Kline the confidence he needed to execute such beautiful paintings.  “Torches Mauve” is just one of many great works to come out of the Abstract Expressionist movement as well as Kline’s personal oeuvre.  The simple but intense color scheme and large masses of black and purple exude strong emotion from the painting.  This masterpiece is something that deserves to be viewed, in person, by everyone.