LOCOMOTIVE

Goodnough, Robert

Oil on Canvas

1957

X1963.08.01

Goodnough created a heavily linear, geometric composition made up of curved and straight dark lines broken by modeled planes. As with other Goodnough paintings, the center of the canvas is dense, and full of activity, but opens up toward the edges of the painting. Where lines intersect, they divide the space and serve as a framework for small modeled planes. These planes of color are all painted with a square flat brush and dabbed on in little blocks of color, mostly dark blues and grays, reds going to black, deep pthalo greens and pinks. The white primed canvas is used as a pictorial device and remains uncovered in several places. The underpainting is made up of gestural lines that are less rigid than the straight lines that dominate the majority of the canvas. Circles are interspersed with some of the harder linear elements, suggesting wheels or motion and providing a futurist theory as to how movement is interpreted (a fast movement slowed down and examined).