Robert Ryman has, over six decades, continuously and methodically experimented with the different possibilities inherent in a painting by selectively concentrating on its various traditional components, including the shape, proportion and surface of the support, as well as the application of a variety of media including oil, acrylic, and other synthetic pigments laid down with a similarly wide range of applicators. This beautifully designed book - the most expansive and comprehensive monograph covering Robert Ryman's career to date - places his famous square "white" paintings in the context of lesser-known, sometimes brightly colored works, thereby demonstrating that contrary to the widespread idea that Ryman has reduced the field of abstract painting's formal and poetic options to theoretical "nothingness," he has instead greatly and surprisingly expanded its sensuousness and formal scope.
