Abstract Expressionism "New needs need new techniques. And the modern artists have found new ways and new means of making their statements ... the modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or of any other past culture." Jackson Pollock Rarely has such a massive transfer of influence has ever touched the world as did in the Paris to New York shift of the 1940's and 1950's. All of the characters of American art were
Abstract Expressionism is making its comeback within the art world. Coined as an artist movement in the 1940’s and 1950’s, at the New York School, American Abstract Expressionist began to express many ideas relevant to humanity and the world around human civilization. However, the subject matters, contributing to artists, were not meant to represent the ever-changing world around them. Rather, how the world around them affected the artist themselves. The works swayed by such worldly influences
Abstract Expressionism In the early fifties, the United States witnessed the emergence of the hydrogen bomb and Miltown sedatives, a Cold War repression and consumerism began to shape the post-war society. In this unshaped world, the abstract expressionists materialized their desperate striving for spontaneity, freedom and the re-discovery of self and the human context. Their romantic, anti-capitalist hope, with all its weaknesses and contradictions, was telling them that the values embedded
The Encyclopedia Britannica reads “Abstract Expressionism, broad movement in American painting that began in the late 1940s and became a dominate trend in Western painting during the 1950s.” Abstract Expressionism was the first art movement to emerge from within the United States. During World War II, European refugees came to the US to avoid persecution; many of which settled in New York City. Among those seeking a safe haven where artist, writers and poets as well as collectors of the arts. Paris
“Of all the arts, abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know how to draw well, that you have a heightened sensitivity for composition and for colours, and that you be a true poet. This last is essential.” - Wassily Kandinsky. OVERVIEW / GENERAL PRESENTATION OF CONCEPTS Art historians typically identify the early 20th century as an important historical moment in the history of abstract art as artists worked to create what they defined as "pure art" - creative works that were
came to America as a stowaway, and made port in Virginia. Later in his life, he traveled to New York, and it was there he found his home. According to The Art Story, experts label de Kooning as one of the most influential Abstract Expressionist painters. Surrealism, Expressionism, and Picasso’s Cubism heavily influenced his work. He is known for “action painting”, which means that the piece itself feels like it is still in motion based on a variety of techniques and characteristics. A couple wiled
Abstract Expressionism and Frank O’Hara’s Writing While researching everything about American cotemporary poet Frank O’Hara, it became very apparent that art was a driving force in both his personal life and his professional writing career. This can be proved by merely trying to find information about him in the literature section in a library. Only his collected poems can be found, but much more information about Frank O’Hara can be found in the art section. Many art books dedicate entire
American Abstract Expressionist movement became a vital tool to the CIA, and the art form was weaponized through propaganda. Though, throughout this time period, “the great majority of Americans disliked or even despised modern art,” it was an essential art movement in the 1950s and 1960s, and the “CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years,” creating a meaningful impact on the outcome of the Cold War (Saunders). “Abstract Expressionism
Pop Art vs. Abstract Expressionism • Characteristics of Abstract Expressionist Paintings-optical buzz, all-over composition, Matisse sometimes painted images on large canvases, as did Picasso but paintings still retained an object like character- the viewer needed to stand back to see the complete composition. Abstract expressionist paintings, on the other hand, draw the spectator into them. The field of vision is thus larger than the field of vision of the spectator, who finds himself in a world
form of expression in the midst of our human frailty. The emphasis of the article will explore the idea of spirituality being key element in abstract expressionism. This article includes the work, Critical but Stable, by Esethu Khambule, which is inspired by Wassily Kandinsky’s Yellow, Red, Blue as well as Frantisek Kupka, Mme Kupka Among Verticals. Abstract Expressionistic movement followed one of the gruesome moments in modern history. The aftermath of World War II created a traumatised society