Frankenthaler's achievement is to have put the language of abstraction to the service of art's historic need to address large ideas.

WSJ: Helen Frankenthaler | Push Past Abstraction | By Eric Gibson

The effect is of looking into a pool, as if Frankenthaler were painting her response to one of Claude Monet's water lilies.

WSJ: Helen Frankenthaler | Push Past Abstraction | By Eric Gibson

For all its abstractness, "Mountains and Sea" is fundamentally a landscape painting, and nature its forms, its moods and above all its unbridled power remained a recurring metaphor in Frankenthaler's art.

WSJ: Helen Frankenthaler | Push Past Abstraction | By Eric Gibson