Shaped Canvas - Departing From The Rectangular

Departing From The Rectangular

When thinking about shaped canvas it might be helpful to bear in mind that canvases are normally rectangular. Canvas is a woven material, with threads, called the warp and weft, lying at right angles to each other. In order to achieve equal tension on all the threads comprised by this fabric, stretcher bars, usually of wood, form a frame that mimics the layout of the threads of the fabric. There is therefore an inherent reason for paintings to be flat and rectangular – although artists have often departed from the norm, especially in circumstances requiring special commissions, an example being the paintings Henri Matisse created for Albert C. Barnes and for Nelson Rockefeller.

Dust tends to gather on the surfaces of any three-dimensional object. Keeping a complicated shaped canvas painting clean can require care and attention that can be avoided by sticking to flat-surfaced paintings.

In certain instances shaped canvas paintings can be seen as painting in relationship to sculpture and to wall relief. During the early to mid 1960s many young painters born in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s made the transition from painting flat rectangles to painting shaped canvases; some of those artists decided to make sculpture and some artists like Kenneth Noland, Frank Stella, and Ellsworth Kelly did both. Other materials can be used in place of canvas. More viable materials might obviate some of the drawbacks of shaped canvas.