Brushes

Philip Guston’s Brushes: The Crude Tools of a Radical Shift

In 1969, Philip Guston abandoned the lyrical abstraction that had defined his career for nearly two decades. Brushes emerged from this rupture—a painting that laid bare the artist’s tools as both subject and symbol. The work belongs to Guston’s late period, when he turned toward figurative motifs rendered in a deliberately clumsy, almost cartoonish style. This was not a retreat but a confrontation: with the political turmoil of the 1960s, with the limitations of pure abstraction, and with the act of painting itself. The brushes here are not mere objects but protagonists, their bristles thick with the physicality of oil paint, their handles jutting like weapons or extensions of the artist’s own hand.

Guston’s return to representation shocked the art world. Critics who had championed his abstract works now dismissed these new paintings as crude or regressively figurative. Yet Brushes exemplifies the raw honesty that defined his late style. The composition’s sparse arrangement—three brushes against a muted ground—strips away ornamentation, forcing attention onto the tools of his trade. As the Museum of Modern Art notes in its analysis of Guston’s oeuvre, this period marked a “deliberate rejection of beauty” in favor of something more urgent: art as a record of human struggle, doubt, and dark humor. The brushes, with their exaggerated forms and scuffed surfaces, become metaphors for the artist’s own vulnerability.

The Year Everything Changed: Guston in 1969

By 1969, Philip Guston had spent twenty years as a leading Abstract Expressionist, his canvases filled with luminous, floating forms that earned him comparisons to Mark Rothko. Yet the late 1960s found him increasingly disillusioned. The Vietnam War, racial unrest, and the assassination of political figures weighed heavily, and Guston later admitted he felt “sick of the whole abstract scene.” His solution was radical: he locked himself in his studio and began painting the objects around him—lightbulbs, shoes, cigarettes, and, as seen here, brushes—rendered in a thick, almost violent impasto.

This was not a whimsical detour but a full-throated rebellion. Guston’s brushes in Brushes are far from the pristine tools of an idealized artist; they are used, worn, and slightly menacing. Their placement on the canvas mimics the composition of a still life, yet their oversized forms and the heavy outlines around them push them into the realm of caricature. The Art Story highlights how Guston’s late work “rejected the sublime in favor of the absurd,” a description that fits Brushes perfectly. The painting’s humor is dark, its simplicity deceptive. What appears childlike is in fact the result of decades of technical mastery, deployed to dismantle the very traditions Guston had once upheld.

Brushes is Guston’s visual manifesto: a declaration that art need not be beautiful to be profound. The brushes are not just tools but witnesses—to the act of creation, to the artist’s doubt, and to the messy, unresolved business of making meaning.

The Making of Brushes: Technique as Statement

Composition: The Weight of Empty Space

The canvas is divided into uneven thirds, with the brushes clustered toward the left, leaving a vast expanse of bare ground to the right. This asymmetry creates tension, as if the brushes are poised to leap into the void. Guston often used empty space to suggest absence or possibility, and here it amplifies the brushes’ presence, making them appear both monumental and precarious.

Surface and Texture: The Illusion of Crudeness

Guston’s brushwork in this period appears rough, but the effect is carefully calibrated. The brushes’ bristles are built up in thick, directional strokes, while their handles are outlined in a single, unsteady line. This contrast between textured and flat areas forces the eye to move across the surface, mimicking the physical act of painting. The colors—muddy pinks, ochres, and blacks—are mixed directly on the canvas, leaving traces of their application visible.

Where to Hang Brushes: A Statement Piece for the Discerning Wall

Guston’s Brushes demands a setting that can handle its confrontational simplicity. The print’s 30×40 cm dimensions make it ideal for a study, library, or home office—spaces where its intellectual weight can be appreciated. Pair it with deep wall colors (think slate blue or warm gray) to echo the painting’s muted tones, or contrast it against crisp white to emphasize its graphic quality. Avoid overly ornate frames; a slim, dark wood or black frame mirrors the painting’s directness. For maximum impact, hang it at eye level in a minimalist arrangement, allowing the brushes to dominate the visual field without competition.

More Works by Philip Guston

Explore Guston’s evolution from abstraction to figuration with these framed prints, each capturing a distinct phase of his groundbreaking career.

Philip Guston

Shoes

View print

Philip Guston

Red Painting

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Philip Guston

Untitled 5

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Philip Guston

Celebration

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