Rudolf De Crignis: Reviews

Rudolf De Crignis Peter Blum Gallery Rudolf De Crignis's paintings, like those of Ad Reinhardt and Robert Ryman, look simple but reward extended scrutiny with experiences of considerable though subtle complexity. Installed with finely calibrated asymmetry in this luminous white shoe box of a gallery, two sets of monochromatic canvases by Mr. De Crignis — five–foot blue squares to the left, two–and–a–half–foot grays to the right — generate an oasis of order and serenity. Though apparently a single hue, each painting is made of many different colored translucent layers. Up close you can see how coats of paint applied with a wide brush, alternating vertically and horizontally with each additional layer and numbering 30 to 40 layers for the blue paintings, up to 60 for the gray ones, create finely woven textures. Although one shade of blue predominates in each of the four larger canvases, you sense the many other colors pulsating within or below the surface. Looking at the six gray paintings, which are made with no actual gray color, it is hard to tell if the pinks or greens that emerge are in the paint itself or in your eyes or in your mind. (James Turrell's Minimalist light sculpture has a similar effect.) At once formally severe and materially luxurious, Mr. De Crignis's paintings bridge the gap between the perceptual and the transcendental. KEN JOHNSON



Rudolf De Crignis
Peter Blum Gallery 


Rudolf De Crignis's paintings, like those of Ad Reinhardt and Robert Ryman, 
look simple but reward extended scrutiny with experiences of considerable 
though subtle complexity. Installed with finely calibrated asymmetry in this 
luminous white shoe box of a gallery, two sets of monochromatic canvases 
by Mr. De Crignis — five–foot blue squares to the left, two–and–a–half–foot 
grays to the right — generate an oasis of order and serenity.

Though apparently a single hue, each painting is made of many different 
colored translucent layers. Up close you can see how coats of paint applied 
with a wide brush, alternating vertically and horizontally with each additional 
layer and numbering 30 to 40 layers for the blue paintings, up to 60 for the 
gray ones, create finely woven textures.

Although one shade of blue predominates in each of the four larger canvases, 
you sense the many other colors pulsating within or below the surface. 
Looking at the six gray paintings, which are made with no actual gray color, 
it is hard to tell if the pinks or greens that emerge are in the paint itself or in 
your eyes or in your mind. (James Turrell's Minimalist light sculpture has a similar effect.)

At once formally severe and materially luxurious, Mr. De Crignis's paintings bridge 
the gap between the perceptual and the transcendental. 
KEN JOHNSON