Quantity and Quality in Coloured Lines
The drawings of Günter Walter
The linear scale with its variety of different lengths is the symbol of order for the pure line.
(Paul Klee. 1922)
If the critics of constructive concepts were not time and again to disqualify these sweepingly as late-comers of modernity or avant-garde, therefore perceiving them more discriminately in the present, something that continuously happens within the realm of these contexts, some original contemporary works would be more closely regarded within these categories which have changed in the public eye. Since the master of art nouveau, Henry van de Velde and his essay The Line in 1910, we can, to briefly recapitulate this popular theme, observe a continuous re-examination of the conflict inherent in the interpretation of the character of the line. Even if the line was a predominantly cultural symbol through the course of history for van de Velde, its organic-biological meaning was discovered a decade later in Bauhaus and the works of Paul Klee. It can be understood that the line is one of the most important means of design throughout the ages. Apart from works which have been created with an important theoretical meaning, in keeping with constructive-concrete Art, it was not only applied as a border or boundary, but takes on a life of its own within the framework of an overall concept. Towards the end of his abstract, even van de Velde writes with reverence about the construction line. Klee, by means of a completely different approach, worked with the assumption of the individuality and the dividuality of lines, of rhythmic repetition, of structure and structural change. In so doing he provided a method of differentiation, which is also generally known to have been applied in other great works of art.
In addition to this, Klee simultaneously developed guidelines for the evaluation of colour. In the field of constructive concepts, works of art which are exclusively based on the construction line, or to be more precise on straight lines and long lines, form part of a discipline which is only sporadically encountered. Except the early pieces, works of art with ribbons and surfaces, brought about by means of short dashed lines or a type of hatching, can be ruled out in the observation proposed here. Günter Walter further limits the repertoire contained within the remaining construction lines by creating an additional category, in which he concentrates on the straight colour line and its creation by means of a coloured pencil. It is immediately apparent that in this way a precise means and a means which may only be viewed as roughly precise, the colour, or rather the coloured pencil, are combined within the coloured line. It is also important to mention that Günter Walter draws the lines by hand, whereas he used a ruler in the development of his earlier work.
These discoveries reveal to us that the artist creates an exact art with an individual and personal commitment to discipline. The fact that the lines, be they longer or shorter, are drawn by hand, in opposition to the digital options available today, may appear old-fashioned to many a shallow observer of art. In such cases the meaning of such art and the connection which exists between the eye, the hand and mental concentration, can naturally not be brought to account. It is an analog artistic expression, the value of which as a comprehensive human exercise can easily be agreed upon.
Günter Walter began with a hand-drawn line. He developed coloured ribbons and quadrate surfaces from soft hatching. Not in order to draw attention to the production of these shapes but in order to facilitate the evaluation of colour quality. The process equals a preliminary examination of the quality which affects the thin coloured lines. Consequently one is able to evaluate that which Paul Klee analysed in his conceptual formulation as a three-stage approach to colour: the quality of colour, its weight and its dimensional characteristics, the latter understood as border, scope and distension. Time after time one is able to recognise how the artist derives so-called excerpts from the hatched surfaces, in order to create coloured lines with them. The hatching is therefore very clearly committed to the quality and not the quantity of the coloured lines.
In his use of up to 32 coloured pencils Günter Walter maintains an overview of colours. He is able to draw fine straight lines with a dictum, which is nothing short of serene. Yet the lines are never solitary. The significance of his artistic exercise is to combine them into predominantly narrowly set parallels. In so doing, so-called “ribbons” emerge, either in the same colour or in mixed colours, where by means of hatching the value of a complementary colour is often determined. A single coloured line, gently drawn, is a wonderful artistically expressed line. There are artists who tend to leave it at two or three such lines on one page. The lines usually run out by means of steadily diminished pressure. For Günter Walter the coloured line or these throngs of lines provide a different perception, that of concrete composition. For the concrete artist surfaces demand to be divided and call for planning, order and combinations. The coloured pencil line very much fulfils concrete design requirements as there is only the pure, unmixed coloured line. If however the colour groups are to be modulated, this can be achieved by means of adjoined groups of identical coloured lines. This results in a more open or denser texture, depending on what has been intended and at the same time as a cause of warp and woof. At the same time the artist has a hand in influencing diverse perceptions of the parallel coloured lines e.g. by means of additive colour mixing.
The wealth of qualitative colour value and its combinations is by no means inferior to the possibilities provided by the linear scale with its variety of different lengths. The constructive line displayed in concrete art is the stroke with which the character of structure is stated. It is a measure for quantity within structured texture: single stroke, double stroke etc. The artist is provided with a wealth of combinatory concepts by means of the large variety of stroke lengths in connection with the variety of colours, whereby the themes and the systems also determine the colours as well as the lengths of the strokes. One module which has emerged is: four coloured rectangular sheets within a larger rectangular arrangement, consisting of e.g. 6 x 6 or 12 x 12 rectangles. These rhythmic quantitative sequels remind us of the coloured rectangles of Richard Paul Lohse. Yet the difference between Günter Walter’s transparent lined rectangles and Lohse’s coloured surfaces, is still quite evident. In the case of line rectangles, the observer is able to follow the positions of the individual colour strokes and discover the structure. This is not obvious at a first glance. In order to present a thematic order of structural possibilities, a more comprehensive display must be provided, similar to the existing works of several concrete artists who adhere to strict plans during conceptualisation. Apart from structural similarities one is, when looking at the coloured line structures, able to observe that due to the fine ductus of the lines, outrageously subtle formations are developed.
Even if Günter Walter very much values the consistently unchanging pressure which he applies to his coloured pencils, his constructions nevertheless convey feeling and a sense of subjective identity. This presumably replaces the close proximity of the colours on the surfaces and therefore also the interaction of colours, an observation which has become commonly accepted since Josef Albers' test procedure. However, the creation of colour zones by means of colour sequences and colour mixtures, as well as the unlimited optical effects form an integral part of the colour pencil drawings. Günter Walter has already created a broad basis of concepts in terms of this chapter of concrete art.
Prof. Eugen Gomringer, 2006
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