Monarch 君主

Robert Ryman is an almost-totally self-taught artist who began painting in the mid-1950s. The art that he has pursued in the nearly forty years following can be summarized in three simple words: "square white paintings." Actually, however, his paintings are remarkably varied in content. Endless variations achieved through different combinations of support (ordinary linen canvas, raw canvas, cotton, fiberglass, corrugated cardboard, tracing paper, metal panel, etc.),paint and medium (oil, casein, enamel, acrylic, other resins, pastel, etc.), brushstrokes (random, violent, orderly, smooth, etc.),size, and other elements (use or non-use of a wooden stretcher, thickness of the wooden stretcher if there is one, use or non-use of assorted metal bracket) characterize Ryman's œuvre and create a myriad of visual effects. The artist himself has refered his paintings as "realism." What he means is that his paintings involve no illusion whatsoever and exist solely as real objects in real space (i.e., on the surface of the wall),Ryman's works are the premier examples of Minimal Art, in which methodological execution is united with a highly-developed aesthetic.