ABSTRACT
In 1953, Robert Rauschenberg exhibited canvases painted flat white, the first of a succession of works that scandalized the New York School. Rauschenberg thought of these abstractions as symbolic, for he gave them such titles as Crucifixion and Reflexion, The Man with Two Souls, and Trinity. The geometric component in them reveals the influence of Albers, with whom Rauschenberg had studied; the allover quality, the prompting of John Cage. The painter who influenced Rauschenberg most was Willem de Kooning, but the young artist’s feelings were ambivalent. Rauschenbergs erasure carried de Kooning’s drawing close to the state of the “silent’’ all-white canvases, with the difference that instead of beginning with “nothing,’’ Rauschenberg began with something, and a masterpiece at that. Inspired by Cage, Rauschenberg ventured not only toward “life” but theater, particularly in his combine-paintings, which invited the spectators to participate as well as to observe.
