Who's afraid of red, yellow, and blue?
- Afreen Mann Majumdar
- Mar 7
- 3 min read
Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue is a series of paintings done by Barnett Newman around 1966-1970. The title references the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In 1986, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam was home to Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue III. This piece was bold– just huge fields of vibrant red flanked by narrow stripes of blue and yellow. Minimalist, yes, but powerful in its simplicity. Not everyone agreed, though.
Enter Gerard Jan van Bladeren. He wasn’t just a casual critic of modern art; he hated it. Van Bladeren, a realist painter, saw works like Newman’s as meaningless, maybe even insulting to traditional art. So one day, he walked into the museum gripping a box cutter and slashed massive, almost 50 feet gashes through the red canvas. The bright, clean surface was torn apart. He didn’t try to run. This was a statement.
Yet, even before this instance, Gerard was not the only one to despise Newman’s creations; nay, the general public thought them unworthy of being a museum, some even saying that looking at such “art” was nauseating. Many thought Gerard should go unpunished for his crime, which he served 18 months of prison for.
Though the restoration of such a painting was thought quite simple, when handed over to Daniel Goldreyer, who claimed to have worked with Newman when he was alive, it was realized how much skill such a painting took. Newman managed to create a shade and texture that had nearly no visible brushstrokes throughout the entire 7 by 17 feet canvas. Even worse, Goldreyer decided that rather than actually restoring the painting, he would just paint over the entire piece with a roller. Even museum casuals could see the difference.
As such, controversy surrounded the infamous painting once more.
However, this attack was actually the second in a series of three against Newman’s work. Newman’s paintings were targets for extreme hostility. The first assault came in 1982 when Josef Nikolaus Kleer, a 29-year-old German student, attacked Newman’s painting Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue IV. To this man, the artwork wasn’t just abstract shapes– it was an insult. He saw it as a corruption of the German flag, something offensive to his national identity.
But note, this act wasn’t just about disagreeing with modern art. See, Newman was a Jewish-American artist. Though not officially stated, it would not be a stretch to assume Kleer was encouraged by antisemitism in his attack, and as such, many of the complaints against Newman might have been.
Of course, that’s speculation. But it’s worth thinking about. Art is often dismissed, not because of what it is, but because of what it represents or who it represents. When people try to define what counts as “real” art, it becomes exclusionary. It leaves room for harmful ideas to creep in, shutting out voices that don’t fit into a narrow mold. Newman’s art wasn’t just rejected for being minimalist or “ugly”; it was tangled up in deeper issues about who gets to belong in the art world.
The debate surrounding Newman’s work underscores how art can provoke visceral reactions of not only admiration but also outrage and even violence. Critics argued that Newman’s minimalist canvases lacked depth, dismissing them as childish or effortless. But such critiques beg the question: Why does simplicity threaten people? Why does a canvas of red provoke such hostility
Newman’s work exposes how art challenges societal norms, and when it defies expectations, it becomes vulnerable to ideological attacks. Newman’s painting forces viewers to face their own discomfort with abstraction and minimalism. The fear is not of color itself but of what it represents: art that is untouched by tradition, authority, and established meaning. For some, this is liberating. For others, it is intolerable.
Perhaps Newman’s work is childish; perhaps it’s worthless and shows no effort; perhaps a canvas with just stripes of red, yellow, and blue on it should not be considered art. But art isn’t just about skill or complexity– it’s about if it makes you feel. And Newman’s paintings provoked such strong feelings that people were willing to destroy them. In that sense, then, the work was profoundly effective. Whether we admire or despise it, we must ask ourselves: why are we so afraid of red, yellow, and blue?
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