Breaking Hue

Breaking Hue bears all the characteristics of Louis's early experiments with Magna, the specific acrylic paint that he had adopted as his sole medium by 1954. Magna dried more quickly than oil paint and retained its intensity of hue even when diluted. Most importantly, successive pours of paint would partially dissolve lower Magna layers, intermingling colors and forms. Here, Louis first poured washes of highly thinned vivid colors onto the fabric, followed by pours of brown, one of which seems to cross the canvas in the opposite direction. Morris's technique allowed him to control the flow of the paint but also to accept effects that arose by chance.