this is what happens when you are tired and hungry and caffeine-deprived and at the very end of midterms, and you are asked to write an in-class essay comparing these two paintings:

richard pousette-dart – symphony no. 1 – transcendental – 1941-42

“this allover abstraction consists of a veritable lucky charms bowl of shapes and figures – hearts, stars, moons, diamonds, circles, squares, and creepy staring eyes. if some abstract expressionism can be described as primordial soup, this, then, is the primordial breakfast cereal.”

richard pousette-dart – radiance : blue circle – 1960s

“pousette-dart, drawing on his earlier interest in small-scale shapes abstracted from nature and the human body, seems to have focused inward on just one of these shapes, breaking it down into even smaller components. this is abstract nature on a molecular level. this is one magnified marshmallow.”