My view of Louise Nevelson has evolved over decades of study. Very early on she learned that life and art are inseparable. She saw and understood the rich and complex world inside and all around us—and with her work gave us the essence of that plenitude and simplicity.
From her earliest studies of nature—the watercolor of trees with their beautiful bark and ominously leaning trunks—to her final works with their daring diagonals and propulsion away from the pages of paper or wood walls, she was aiming fearlessly toward something beyond the here and now.
As she matured as an artist and a woman she came to understand that she was actually searching for the spiritual essence of life, its deeper meaning, its universal truths. At first the titles of her early exhibitions gave viewers a way into the depth of her intentions: Ancient Games, Ancient Places; The Forest; Moon Garden + One; Dawn’s Wedding Feast.
But those were merely maps, means to orient oneself in the enigmatic worlds she had created. What she really wanted was for the viewer to discover the universal experience of what she called livingness.
Later, evocative titles were not always used to help people connect with her work. She had seen often enough that committed viewers got her messages by simply looking at her work.
When she gave titles to her late works they were symbolic, no longer literal signposts, and impossible to imagine except by taking a leap into the unknown and unknowable: Mirror Shadow, Sky Horizon, Volcanic Magic, Dawn Shadows, Cascades Perpendicular, Sky Landscape. As a lifelong Surrealist, she knew that combining the uncombinable would lead to that inevitable leap into understanding the mysteries of life.
Whether she believed she was bringing the fourth dimension with its ideal harmonies down to the here and now of the three-dimensional world with her sculpture, or celebrating the profound and wondrous world around us, she was offering a window into her soul, and perhaps also our own.