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Pendulum

Muted earthy colors stretch down from the top edge of  the canvas and also spread ever so slightly to the sides like an abstracted rectangular clamshell. Morris Louise painted Pendulum in nineteen fifty-four, applying acrylic resin to an unprimed canvas measuring a hundred and five inches wide by seventy-nine inches tall. Vertical transparent stripes of moss, sienna, sky blue, mustard and lavender smear into one another like watercolor, all with a beige wash over them. There are also two patches of dark paint that seem to have curdled on the surface, at a distance they appear as a fine splatter but up close they are ragged shapes. This dark color has thick blotches along the top edge and then thins out as it moves down. The more substantial patch takes up a lot of the top right quadrant and then a smaller patch is a couple feet from the left edge.

The stripes of color start at the top edge as if spilling over the top of the canvas. There are also thin dark splotches along the top border, a little bit on the left and then most of the right half. The stripes of color stop a few inches short the left corner and the color dips away from the top for several inches at the right with a dull pink and gray peninsula reaching back up to the right corner.

Along the right edge, multiple patches of lavender, moss, and brown reach all the way to the edge while leaving a few arcs of naked canvas between.

The very bottom right corner has a tiny brown stain surrounded by a rounded square foot of untouched canvas. To the left of that, the color cascades to within several inches of the bottom of the canvas. The whispers of tan, blue and lavender hang near the bottom like sheer curtains that end in a jagged brown outline.

Towards the bottom left corner, the color looks more like cascading clouds. Purple gives way to fleshy pink, then moss and yellow. These overlaps get tighter above the bottom left corner as they move up staying several inches away from the left edge all the way to the top.