Masterful in its geometry and shape, Study for Homage to the Square: Awakening from 1963 is a prime example of Josef Albers' command of the visual and chromatic language. Presenting the viewer with a vivid texture of yellow and gray, three tonal bands are artfully aligned within the composition. The present painting has two similar companion paintings titled Awakening A and Awaking B, which reside in the collection of the Foundation Joseph e Years Albers. The reverse of Albers' Homage paintings reads a kind of complete recipe for their construction, listing their specific colours, in this case ultramarine yellow, Scheveningen yellow and optic grey. These carefully selected hues are carefully applied with a palette knife, which can be seen in the careful, small applications of pigment that strangely imply a sense of depth in a seemingly flat and depthless field of clearly delineated shapes.
The practicality of his process was based on the skills he learned from his father, a builder and house painter. When she was painting a door, her father told him, start in the middle and paint outward, "That way you get the IVs and you don't get the handcuffs dirty."
The format of the square composition defines Josef Albers' most iconic series of paintings.
The optical effects of the refined color scheme radiate from the simplicity of form, artfully illustrating the artist's notion that adjustments to placement, shape, and light significantly alter perception of color. Albers explained that this seemingly repetitive pattern allows him to experiment with different color combinations and the subtle, shifting hues that can be found within a single color. At the same time, this unchanged format ensures that geometric shapes would remain the stable variant. “Colour,” as Albers states, “is the medium of my language… I am not paying homage to the square.” It's just the dish I serve for my madness for color” (quoted from “Albers” on Albers,” Art News, 1966, page 48).
