Robert Ryman: The Real Thing, Barbican review- painting at its most joyously intelligent
Sarah Kent | the arts desk | 10th October 2026
It’s hard to get a feel for Ryman’s singular white paintings because reproductions usually miss their subtleties. Yet the subtleties are there, such as “a glossy, almost perfect white haunted by a memory of green”. Variation in the density and texture of the paint and the framing materials were also Ryman specialties. For one critic, such minute effects are “dry and boring”. Ryman explained that he used white because it helped “make things visible”. Don’t try to analyse, he advised, “the essence of all painting is feeling”.