Nothing is new today

The Chevron was a series of work that Kenneth Noland explored between 1964 - 1966.  His transitional pictures abandoned quadrilateral symmetry in favor of bilateral symmetry, gaining tension by moving the “center” of his images up and down within the picture rectangle — especially down. In some of these transitional paintings, “rays” of color emanated from a point at the bottom edge. It was a simple step from these to arrangements of parallel-banded chevrons, with one point at or near the center of the bottom edge and the lower edges of one band intersecting the top corners of the picture. This arrangement provided a measured stability which could be played off against the picture rectangle ­ no longer necessarily a square ­ in a new way. In effect, Noland inverted the traditional stability of the tarditional stable pyramid (much used in the High Renaissance) gaining dynamism as a result. The dynamism could be increased by breaking away from symmetry by shifting the lower point of the chevrons off center, in the process creating a new tension between depicted shape and the picture rectangle.