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Burn and Glitter

Burn and Glitter is a luminous painting on unprimed canvas from 1966 that towers at just over nine-and-a-half feet tall by seven-and-a-quarter feet wide. It lacks any reference to objects, figures, or the kind of texture that the bristles of a paintbrush might leave through different thicknesses of paint. Jules Olitski accomplished this by applying red, yellow, and blue acrylic paint onto an unprimed canvas with an industrial spray gun. The paints were then blended on the canvas itself, creating a vibrant colorfield. This colorfield can be divided roughly into thirds spanning top to bottom. Colors primarily range from deep red on the left third, mauve toward the center, and yellow, then orange streaked with brown toward the right. Although the colors were applied one at a time, they overlap and intermix in a way that resembles wavering colors found in the always-dancing flames of a fire. Most of the paint is thinly applied, appearing almost gauzy, with a few scattered undulating lines and bands of slightly thicker paint and denser color. The tiny bumps of unprimed canvas provide just enough texture to make the whole artwork appear to glint as if washed over with glitter.

There is only one deviation from the organic and unpredictable variations in color throughout: An immaculate strip of gray a few inches wide hugs the full length of the painting’s right edge. The gray is darkest at the bottom. It grows ever fainter and airier as it rises, becoming nearly invisible by the top. Unlike real smoke that rises above flames and vanishes as it dissipates in air, this gray painted strip stretches into the burning glow of yellow and is consumed by a darkening patch of warm orange.