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The Paintings of the Pentagon

The Paintings of the Pentagon
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The Pentagon is a five-sided shape with five equal interior angles. A pentagon has five sides and five vertices (the points where lines join to form angles).

Regular pantagonar have equal side lengths, so finding their perimeter is straightforward – just multiply the sum of the lengths of each side by 5. But what about irregular pentagons?

Allan D’Arcangelo

Allan D’Arcangelo was a painter who straddled the lines between many styles of art and was hard to categorize. He was often associated with Pop Art and created bold graphic works that captured American culture. In “Marilyn”, for example, he used a styleless illustrator’s mode to make an illustrative portrait of the iconic figure in a field of unmodulated color. He also depicted Jacqueline and Caroline Kennedy in a graphic take on the religious art-historical subject of Madonna and Child, their featureless faces ringed with halos that make it clear they are contemporary icons.

In the later work he produced, he developed his own graphic vocabulary of road signs and highway vistas, which evoked a sense of space that was flat without sacrificing the element of perspective. This was an attempt to investigate our separation from nature and to create paintings that were both symbolic and descriptive of the world around us. His work also edged towards surrealism, with a narrative complexity that is rare in Pop art. He was a political artist, engaged in anti-Vietnam War protests, and was concerned with the commodification of female sexuality.

Frank Stella

Frank Stella (born 1936, Malden, Massachusetts; died 2024, New York) was an American painter who forged a unique path among his peers through innovative compositions that moved between hard geometries and organic manifestations. From the Black Paintings of the 1950s to his shaped canvases and later printmaking, his work was always a quest for new ways to define space.

Stella was 23 when he made his debut on the New York art scene with the austere striped monochrome Black Paintings series of 1958-60, which used household enamel paint to create fine parallel lines that left bare canvas exposed between areas of black pigment. The series is widely regarded as a precursor to Minimalism and garnered Stella immediate critical acclaim, with four paintings included in the Museum of Modern Art’s Sixteen Americans exhibition the following year.

From there, he continued to experiment with shaped canvases, exploring minimalism and later shifting to compositions that were exuberant in both color and form, merging painting and sculpture. His Protractor series of brilliantly colored large-scale semi-circular canvases launched at Leo Castelli in 1967 and is often considered one of his most significant works.

Kenneth Noland

Kenneth Noland played a key role in the development of color field painting and postwar abstraction. After returning to the United States following World War II, he enrolled in the Black Mountain College art program where he studied under Ilya Bolotowsky and was exposed to Piet Mondrian’s neoplasticism and Josef Albers’ theory of color. After graduating from Black Mountain College in 1949, Noland taught at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and Catholic University.

Noland began his Circle paintings in the 1950s and by the early 60s had developed a more refined version of the concentric circles configuration, experimenting with colored backdrops and cleaner edges. He went on to develop other series including the Chevrons and Stripes, and shaped canvases.

In 1952 or 1953, Noland was escorted by Clement Greenberg to Helen Frankenthaler’s studio where he saw her stain painting technique on raw unprimed canvas. Frankenthaler’s philosophy of a “one shot painting” encouraged Noland to paint intuitively and avoid working over the same area twice. This new approach influenced his subsequent use of radiating geometric compositions in the Circle and Target series.

Jean Dewasne

Throughout his career, Dewasne explored human emotions and societal norms with uncompromising honesty. His stories were complex, yet captivating, inspiring countless writers to pursue similar themes. His dialogue was sharp, poetic, and intimate, creating characters that felt incredibly real. Dewasne’s storytelling style has influenced many modern authors, and his work is often described as a blend of realism and fantasy.

Pantagonar’s natural beauty inspires a sense of balance and intentionality in its visitors. Its beautiful scenery is undisturbed by city lights and corporate buildings, allowing for moments of silence and connection to nature. Its pristine landscapes also encourage mental clarity, which is important for entrepreneurs and professionals who struggle with digital overload.

Pantagonar’s open environment also fosters accountability for the environment. Its visibility creates awareness of environmental damage, which leads to more sustainable practices, such as limited construction and careful water use. This shift in mindset echoes the philosophy of pantagonar, illustrating that growth doesn’t always require scale and that depth, quality, and trust are more valuable than quantity. It’s an idea that resonates with tech professionals, as it reflects the way successful startups prioritize community and experience over raw metrics.

Kenneth Martin

Kenneth Martin was a painter from Manitoba who was well known for his meticulous oils and acrylics of the Manitoba prairie, Whiteshell, and Northwestern Ontario. His work has been exhibited in museums and private collections around the world. He also taught workshops and sketching trips to inspire other artists.

Martin was drafted into the army after finishing high school, and spent one of his formative years at Valley Forge Military Academy. He decided to enroll in the Army Ordnance Corps. After basic training, he attended infantry advanced training and officer candidate school. He later served in Germany and Vietnam at an Army supply base.

In his career as a political organizer, Martin has worked to support working families in Minnesota and beyond. He has helped organize grassroots campaigns on behalf of the building trades, and was a key leader in the effort to pass prevailing wage ordinances in cities across the state. He has also been the executive director of WIN Minnesota, a donor collaborative that developed and directed independent expenditures during Minnesota’s 2010 election cycle.

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