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Abstract
Expressionism Art Paintings and Posters
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Abstract expressionism was an
American post-World War II art movement. It was the first specifically
American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put
New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by
Paris.
Although the term "abstract expressionism" was first applied to
American art in 1946 by the art critic Robert Coates, it had been first used in
Germany in 1919 in the magazine Der Sturm, regarding
German Expressionism. In the
USA, Alfred Barr was the first to use this term in 1929 in relation to works by
Wassily
Kandinsky. Style
Technically, an important predecessor is surrealism, with its emphasis
on spontaneous, automatic or subconscious creation.
Jackson
Pollock's dripping paint onto a canvas laid on the floor is a
technique that has its roots in the work of Max Ernst. Another important
early manifestation of what came to be abstract expressionism is the
work of American Northwest artist Mark Tobey, especially his "white
writing" canvases, which, though generally not large in scale,
anticipate the "all over" look of Pollock's drip paintings.
The movement's name is derived from the combination of the emotional
intensity and self-denial of the
German Expressionism
with the anti-figurative aesthetic of the European abstract schools such
as Futurism, the Bauhaus and Synthetic Cubism. Additionally, it has an
image of being rebellious, anarchic, highly idiosyncratic and, some
feel, nihilistic. In practice, the term is applied to any number of
artists working (mostly) in New York who had quite different styles and
even to work that is neither especially abstract nor expressionist.
Pollock's energetic "action paintings", with their "busy" feel, are
different, both technically and aesthetically, from the violent and
grotesque Women series of Willem de Kooning's figurative paintings) and
the rectangles of color in
Mark
Rothko's Color Field paintings (which are not what would usually be
called expressionist and which Rothko denied were abstract). Yet all
three artists are classified as abstract expressionists.
Abstract expressionism has many stylistic similarities to the Russian
artists of the early twentieth century such as
Wassily Kandinsky. Although it is true that spontaneity or the
impression of spontaneity characterized many of the abstract
expressionists works, most of these paintings involved careful planning,
especially since their large size demanded it. With artists like
Paul
Klee,
Wassily Kandinsky, Emma Kunz, and later on
Rothko,
Barnett Newman and Agnes Martin, abstract art clearly implied
expression of ideas concerning the spiritual, the unconscious and the
mind.
Why this style gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s is a matter of
debate. American social realism had been the mainstream in the 1930s. It
had been influenced not only by the Great Depression but also by the
Social Realists of Mexico such as David Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego
Rivera. The political climate after
World War II
did not long tolerate the social protests of these painters. Abstract
expressionism arose during
World War II
and began to be showcased during the early forties at galleries in
New York
like The Art of This Century Gallery. The McCarthy era after
World War II
was a time of extreme artistic censorship in the
United States.
Since the subject matter was often totally abstract it became a safe
strategy for artists to pursue this style. |
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Abstract Art
Abstract Artists
Abstract categories
color
expressionism
geometric
gestural
landscape
man-made
organic
text
New Abstract
Catalogue
Abstract Artists
Albers,
Josef
Braque,
Georges
Calder,
Alexander
Delaunay, Robert
Diebenkorn, Richard
Dufy, Raoul
Feininger,
Lyonel
Frankenthaler,
Helen
Gris, Juan
Hodgkin, Howard
Kandinsky, Wassily
Klee, Paul
Leger, Fernand
Malivich, Kasimir
Miro, Joan
Mondrian, Piet
Motherwell,
Robert
Pollock, Jackson
Rothko, Mark
Stella, Frank
Vasarely, Victor
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