Audio Description (02:18)

Full Audio Transcript (Expand)

Before, Again IV

In 1985, after having received a cancer diagnosis, Joan Mitchell painted the Before, Again cycle. At a little over nine feet tall and five and a half feet wide, Before, Again IV is an abstract oil painting on canvas composed of networks of wide, squiggly bands that range from sharp and clean-edged to smudged to dripping as if caught in the rain. They layer over each other and layer again, going every which way, in dark blue, pale blue, golden-orange, bubblegum pink, tan, gray, kelly green, and just a few spots of vibrant fire engine red. There are variations on these hues where a band was painted over another one that was still wet, inviting unique colors to emerge from these smudges. The addition of white painted marks plays with the viewer’s perceptions. At times, it becomes unclear whether some creamy off-white portions are made by white paint applied over other colors or they are actually small hints of white primed canvas peeking through from between the undulating lines. Only some of the wavy lines are short and crisp. Most are long and flowing, with clusters of bends and curves that seem as if the artist’s arm must have made large, sweeping gestures to bring paint to canvas.

The dominant colors are blue, green, gray, and orange. Pink appears almost exclusively in the upper left corner with faint touches of it at the lower left. The upper right corner is unpainted. A noodly tangle of gold floats near the upper middle portion. One long, golden ribbon waves out behind it like a scarf caught in a breeze while the tangle streams toward the left. Most of the painting is deeply layered. Sometimes a dark color like kelly green winds its way over a golden streamer. At other times, a pale pink glides its way down a darker green like passing clouds. It would not be unusual to wonder, at times, which colors are painted on higher layers and which are below. The waving, looping quality of the thick bands of color can make it hard to tell in which order the colors were painted on. And because there are no truly straight lines on this canvas, there is a sense that the painting is moving while the viewer remains in place.