Ellsworth Kelly, Dark Green Curve I, 1982, oil on canvas, 72 1/2 x 102 1/8 in., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Photo by rbasallote via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic License.
There is no room for interpretation here: you are looking at a large, flat green shape created by Ellsworth Kelly. This work of art that boldly asserts its flatness is typical of Kelly’s Formalist art, which in many ways was a reaction to the emotional and gestural Abstract Expressionism. You won’t learn anything about the artist from this simple form. Kelly found shapes in the natural world and saturated them with color so that we can admire and appreciate the purity of the form.
