Barnett Newman

Onement, I, 1948, Oil on canvas and oil on masking tape on canvas, 69.2 x 41.2 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Gift of Annalee Newman, 390.1992, © Barnett Newman Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY

Longing for a Just Order

Commentary by William A. Dyrness

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In 1948, Barnett Newman painted Onement I, which he claimed was his artistic breakthrough. That same year he specified the purpose of his artistic work:

We are reasserting man’s natural desire for the exalted.… Instead of making cathedrals out of Christ, man or ‘life’ we are making them out of ourselves, out of our own feelings. The image we produce is the self-evident one of revelation, real and concrete. (Newman, in Rose 1968: 160)

This work was the first of his famous ‘zip’ paintings where a painted vertical strip both divides and unites the canvas. Though Newman claims this ‘cathedral’ is made out of his own feelings, it may also reflect something of his own Orthodox Jewish heritage, for the strong vertical also suggests a plumb line that sets a standard against which deviation can be measured.

In this central section of Isaiah 28, the prophet exposes the folly of Israel. Though they should be able to relax and trust in YHWH’s providence (v.12), they followed the advice of inebriated priests and made a covenant with death (v.15)—a reference to their attraction to the Canaanite god Mot = death—by aligning themselves with Egypt against Assyria. As John Goldingay writes: ‘Making Egypt their refuge is an act of blasphemy. YHWH is supposed to be their refuge, their shelter’ (Goldingay 2014: 137). To establish this place of security God promises ‘a sure foundation’ (v.16) and a line for justice, a plumb line (v.17) that both separates justice from injustice and unites those who trust in YHWH.

However much Newman claimed to trust his self-made ‘cathedral’, his work references another aim: to find some standard, a line that can be trusted. Even the title of this work, Onement I, recalls the ancient root of the word ‘atonement’: making into one, suggesting a yearning for reconciliation that, in that post-war period of hope in the West, recalls the experience of eighth-century BCE Israel.

 

References

Goldingay, John. 2014. The Theology of the Book of Isaiah (Downers Grove: IVP)

Newman, Barnett. 1968. ‘The Sublime is Now’, in Readings in American Art: A Documentary Survey, ed. by Barbara Rose (New York: Praeger)

See full exhibition for Isaiah 28

Isaiah 28

Revised Standard Version

28Woe to the proud crown of the drunkards of Eʹphraim,

and to the fading flower of its glorious beauty,

which is on the head of the rich valley of those overcome with wine!

2Behold, the Lord has one who is mighty and strong;

like a storm of hail, a destroying tempest,

like a storm of mighty, overflowing waters,

he will cast down to the earth with violence.

3The proud crown of the drunkards of Eʹphraim

will be trodden under foot;

4and the fading flower of its glorious beauty,

which is on the head of the rich valley,

will be like a first-ripe fig before the summer:

when a man sees it, he eats it up

as soon as it is in his hand.

5In that day the Lord of hosts will be a crown of glory,

and a diadem of beauty, to the remnant of his people;

6and a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment,

and strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.

7These also reel with wine

and stagger with strong drink;

the priest and the prophet reel with strong drink,

they are confused with wine,

they stagger with strong drink;

they err in vision,

they stumble in giving judgment.

8For all tables are full of vomit,

no place is without filthiness.

9“Whom will he teach knowledge,

and to whom will he explain the message?

Those who are weaned from the milk,

those taken from the breast?

10For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept,

line upon line, line upon line,

here a little, there a little.”

11Nay, but by men of strange lips

and with an alien tongue

the Lord will speak to this people,

12to whom he has said,

“This is rest;

give rest to the weary;

and this is repose”;

yet they would not hear.

13Therefore the word of the Lord will be to them

precept upon precept, precept upon precept,

line upon line, line upon line,

here a little, there a little;

that they may go, and fall backward,

and be broken, and snared, and taken.

14Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scoffers,

who rule this people in Jerusalem!

15Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death,

and with Sheol we have an agreement;

when the overwhelming scourge passes through

it will not come to us;

for we have made lies our refuge,

and in falsehood we have taken shelter”;

16therefore thus says the Lord God,

“Behold, I am laying in Zion for a foundation

a stone, a tested stone,

a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation:

‘He who believes will not be in haste.’

17And I will make justice the line,

and righteousness the plummet;

and hail will sweep away the refuge of lies,

and waters will overwhelm the shelter.”

18Then your covenant with death will be annulled,

and your agreement with Sheol will not stand;

when the overwhelming scourge passes through

you will be beaten down by it.

19As often as it passes through it will take you;

for morning by morning it will pass through,

by day and by night;

and it will be sheer terror to understand the message.

20For the bed is too short to stretch oneself on it,

and the covering too narrow to wrap oneself in it.

21For the Lord will rise up as on Mount Peraʹzim,

he will be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon;

to do his deed—strange is his deed!

and to work his work—alien is his work!

22Now therefore do not scoff,

lest your bonds be made strong;

for I have heard a decree of destruction

from the Lord God of hosts upon the whole land.

23Give ear, and hear my voice;

hearken, and hear my speech.

24Does he who plows for sowing plow continually?

does he continually open and harrow his ground?

25When he has leveled its surface,

does he not scatter dill, sow cummin,

and put in wheat in rows

and barley in its proper place,

and spelt as the border?

26For he is instructed aright;

his God teaches him.

27Dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge,

nor is a cart wheel rolled over cummin;

but dill is beaten out with a stick,

and cummin with a rod.

28Does one crush bread grain?

No, he does not thresh it for ever;

when he drives his cart wheel over it

with his horses, he does not crush it.

29This also comes from the Lord of hosts;

he is wonderful in counsel,

and excellent in wisdom.

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