Art in Review - The New York Times

Maybe you can beat a dead horse after all. John Zinsser is one of a number of younger painters whose efforts suggest that Color Field painting and its weaker cousin, Lyrical Abstraction, may enjoy something of a revival in the 1990's. Much in the manner of 1960's formalism, his work emphasizes paint as paint, its color and its application process, to the exclusion of all else. Previous works have often had thinnish layers of variegated colors that imply random dripping or pouring. These new paintings, which have a definite feeling of summer, are smaller and more condensed, with surfaces of bright green layered on in thick, wide strokes that stack up a little like bricks. Strategically splattered drops of red or yellow paint increase the optical zing. Like dandelions in a well-tended lawn, they add a hint of chaos, but only a hint. Bettmann, via Getty Images Victor Llorente for The New York Times Advertisement NBCUniversal Mark Von Holden/Invision, via Associated Press Netflix Bryan Bed

Maybe you can beat a dead horse after all. John Zinsser is one of a number of younger painters whose efforts suggest that Color Field painting and its weaker cousin, Lyrical Abstraction, may enjoy something of a revival in the 1990's. Much in the manner of 1960's formalism, his work emphasizes paint as paint, its color and its application process, to the exclusion of all else. Previous works have often had thinnish layers of variegated colors that imply random dripping or pouring. These new paintings, which have a definite feeling of summer, are smaller and more condensed, with surfaces of bri