3

Does "to adjust a red to a blue" mean to change the color of an object from blue to red?

Context:

"So when the 1960s came along, I was feeling split, schizophrenic; the war, what was happening to America, the brutality of the world. What kind of a man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going into a frustrated fury about everything – and then going home to adjust a red to a blue?"

Philip Guston interviewed by Jerry Talmer, ‘Creation is for Beauty Parlors’ The New York Post, April 9, 1977. Source.

Joachim
  • 3,313
user127733
  • 985
  • 1
    Perhaps, it's metaphorical, red for anger ("frustrated fury") vs. blue for sadness. In any case, a broader context is needed as it is literary. – Kris Jul 26 '15 at 11:18
  • 1
    The fact that Philip Guston is a Canadian-American painter hints strongly at a literal interpretation. Who can guess whether the communist ... conservative spectrum is being deliberatley referenced? – Edwin Ashworth Apr 02 '23 at 15:47

2 Answers2

2

I think it very much is like you say.

This is the kind of action paintings Guston made before beginning "the series of bold, tragicomic allegories that preoccupied him for the last decade of his life", as the Frieze article you link to points out:

enter image description here
Philip Guston, Alchemist, 1960. Source.

The article is about how he switched to a more pictorial art (see example below), whereas it was a lot more common to change—in the face of "despair over the downwardly spiralling political situation"—from a figurative to a more abstract art.

enter image description here
Philip Guston, Head, 1968. Source.

"To adjust a red to a blue" is exactly that: when he were to see a painting such as Alchemist shown above in a new light, the act of covering a red spot with a blue colour, e.g. to improve the composition or the colour harmony, might have felt to Guston like a feeble and meaningless act.

Joachim
  • 3,313
-1

No, it doesn't mean to change a blue to a red. "Adjust a red to a blue" means carefully mixing red paint so the color looks right to the artist compared to the blue he has already dribbled on his canvas. Guston was an action painter, a form of abstract painting that involves dribbling paint on canvas. Getting the colors just right was important.

In the quote, Guston was expressing his frustration at action painting. He was saying that with all the turmoil in the world at the time, he felt he needed to do something more than just match colors.

This frustration led him to develop a new style of painting.

William Bloom
  • 891