Barnett Newman, Third Station, 1960

By ANTHONY MADISON

Newman’s beginning stages as an artist consisted of failure and self-emptiness. Anything he painted early on, he destroyed and continued to destroy until his works matched his expectations. In 1948, he develops a pictorial device called a “zip.” This “zip” was meant to make two sides of a painting look as if a colored bar was separating it. On the contrary, the bar was meant to symbolize the “spark of life” and join the two sides of the canvas together. 

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ is by far one of the most important historical events to date. Barnett Newman crafted an entire fourteen-piece series based on this event titled The Stations of the Cross: Lema Sabachthani (1958-66). The Third Station was when Jesus fell from the cross the first time after being hung there. Newman’s depiction of this event is supposed to be an abstract painting of Jesus as he hangs helplessly from the cross. Barnett’s famous “zip” he uses in most of his paintings is also used in this one as a method to separate what looks like a colored drop that fell into a glass of water. There are multiple “zips” used in this painting to represent the cry of Jesus. The use of an off white canvas instead of a plain white canvas causes the painting to appear older and more yellowed out than any of his other masterpieces. Through the yellowing of the canvas, it also give the artwork a deeper sense of meaning. Without the difference in color, the painting would look a bit more juvenile with a bunch of black lines splattered onto a pure white canvas.

Through Newman’s use of the “zip” and his abstract surreal technique, his artwork can be seen as a countless amount of subjects. Some may see Jesus Christ crying out for help on a bloody cross, or some might see a bunch of stripes on a dull canvas.