Walnut Hedge

"Walnut Hedge," 1971, is painted in the characteristic soak-staining technique. A third of the canvas on the left side is taken up with a curving walnut stain; a narrow slash of green drops down at the upper left, sectioning off two roughly equal-sized areas of pinkish terracotta above and ochre below. As with many of Frankenthaler's paintings, this suggests the outdoors; in this case a tall hedge perhaps sits within an indeterminate but divided landscape. The ochre patch is marked with four fine black lines, adjacent to another that is drawn into the hedge. The vitality of the artist's linear strokes is finely in tension with the majestic stillness of the earth-colored hues.