Blue Jump by Helen Frankenthaler is a three by five-foot acrylic painting that hangs vertically. This means that its shorter side runs parallel to the floor. Casting a long presence that fills the viewers’ gaze from top to bottom, fields of color reminiscent of clouds slide down the composition. The sequence of grey, yellow, bruised blue, indigo, and salmon cascade down an off-white background with a sliver of salmon peeking through the bottom right corner of the canvas. Large irregular forms appear through the negative space that surround the fields of color. The edges of these roughly oblong color fields are rounded and smoothed, a telltale sign of Frankenthaler “soak stain” technique, which allows the paint to seep into the canvas, like a very intense version of a watercolor. A feeling of suspension rises from trajectory of these irregular shapes, their destination unpredictable, their destination overwhelms any conclusion. Blue Jump can be read as a visual poem, as the color fields express themselves throughout the canvas, without the structure and composition of more traditional paintings.