Carl Andre and Frank Stella

The first of these pieces is by Carl Andre, writing about Frank Stella for an exhibition of Stella's at MoMA.  Andre and Stella shared studio space for a brief time in New York.  Andre discusses Stella's paintings of stripes as the "exclusion of the unnecessary," which he also believes to be what art is.  He sees the paintings as only brush strokes on canvas, as paths that are sort of a pure, true form of painting.

The second piece of writing is by Frank Stella, examining what he believes to be the two "problems" of painting: learning about what painting is and figuring out how to make your own paintings.  Stella believes that the most crucial thing one needs to do to learn about painting is to look at and imitate other people's paintings.  In this way, one can begin to teach oneself different techniques and to also eventually consider the painters' mindsets as they worked on a piece.  After this process, Stella then began to make his own paintings but was frustrated in his work.  He came to simplify his paintings in order to "force illusionistic space out of the painting at a constant rate by using a regulated pattern": hence his use of line.  

Frank Stella, The Marriage of Reason and Squalor, 1959