Addison Parks writes about Porfirio DiDonna: Paintings from the 1970s at Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York, on view through July 31, 2015.

Parks writes: "According to John Baker, DiDonna's worthy biographer, this man was a religious artist. Indeed, Baker has staked his career on this uncomfortable propostion. That in the age of man's great intellectual free-thinking pride, a smart, well-educated, aware, and sophisticated citizen of the world, and Modern Art, believed in something ancient, something held alive in churches and cathedrals, something floating in among the particles of dust dancing in the rays of light filtered through a stained glass window during a Sunday Mass. Maybe someone who stands alone among 20 Century artists. Maybe someone who only an artist like Rothko could begin to help us understand… Porfirio DiDonna painted the thing that cannot be painted. Yes. Call it the air if that is easier, or the spirit, or the awesome nothingness, but he did it."