Rising to Purple

Richard Tuttles Rising to Purple from 1973 is a watercolor and graphite drawing on ivory wove paper that exemplifies the artists radical approach to the drawn mark as a physical event rather than a representation of something outside itself, an approach that has made him one of the most influential artists of the post-Minimalist generation. Tuttle, who emerged in the late 1960s with a body of work that challenged every assumption about the physical presence, material constitution, and aesthetic authority of the art object, developed a practice in which the distinction between drawing, painting, and sculpture was dissolved in favor of a more fundamental inquiry into the nature of the art object itself. Rising to Purple, with its title suggesting both a chromatic direction and an upward movement, presents a watercolor mark that rises from the bottom of the page toward a chromatic destination that is both a color and a direction, creating a visual experience that is simultaneously perceptual and conceptual. The watercolor medium, with its capacity for transparent washes that reveal the paper beneath, creates a mark that is simultaneously present and transparent, visible and ephemeral, a physical event that insists on its own materiality while acknowledging the paper that supports it. The graphite, applied with a lightness that makes it almost invisible, provides a Linear counterpoint to the chromatic wash that anchors the composition in the tradition of drawing while refusing the authority of the drawn line.

Tuttles drawings are among the most radical works of post-Minimalist art, and Rising to Purple demonstrates his approach to the drawn mark as a physical event rather than a representation. His drawings influenced the development of post-Minimalist drawing and the broader tradition of art that questions the nature and authority of the art object.

A 1973 watercolor and graphite drawing by Tuttle on ivory wove paper presenting a mark that rises toward the color purple as both chromatic destination and upward movement, treating the drawn mark as a physical event rather than representation in a radical post-Minimalist inquiry.