The Cold War And The American Abstract Expressionism

This made Americans fear losing their jobs and maybe even becoming enemies of the state, even though most of them had never involved themselves with communist groups. The Cold War lead to a society where every man is against another, it divided the nation over a fight against society, and it caused a fear of a possible war.

Communism is the antithesis of the American society. Americans felt that action was required to prevent communism from entering the U.S. Americans voted for lawmakers that would fulfill the needs to prevent the spread of communism from entering the U.S. This concept was evident in laws such as the Communist-Control act, the introduction of the school course titled Americanism vs. Communism, and executive strategies were popular among U.S citizens (History.com Staff). Finally, the influence of the American ideology impacted the American political system while the U.S was at

As a result of the expanding threat of the Soviet Union, or its Communist ideals, America took a stand that lead to the Cold War. Although the war did not involve fighting directly with Russia, it still affected American society and domestic policy. The war affected America so much that it lead to a fear of livelihood; precisely when Joseph McCarthy began his "witch hunt". The Cold War lead to an enlarged fear of nuclear war; as well, it affected many of the domestic policies. The Cold War affected domestic policy in two different ways, both socially and economically. Socially, the intensive indoctrination of the American people led to a regression of social reforms. Economically, enormous growth spurred by industries related to the war was aided by heavy government expansion. However, New Deal economics felt the greatest impact of the Cold War. Economically speaking, the Soviets and the Americans, we as different during the Cold War as they were politically. The Americans advocated free market capitalism while the Soviets promoted communism. Both sides touted benefits of their system and deficiencies of the other while claiming greater freedom for their citizens. For the Americans, this meant championing the innovation and affluence that capitalism brought; while correlating communism with oppression. The civilian population in American was encouraged to build personal bomb shelters in the 1950s. This

American fears in the Cold War originated not only from Communism, but what it represented in American culture. After World War II, the popular culture demonizing the fascist regimes, the built-up aggression surrounding the system, began to move against Communism as tension between the USSR and America rose. Communism became viewed as a corruption; an infection that ruined the rugged individualism that Americans defined themselves by. Communism also, though its declaration of the evils of capitalism, decried Americans as living in an unequal society, that the United States lived in hypocrisy through its statements of liberty for all while it existed in a capitalist and segregated society. Americans saw the Soviet Union as the evil its heroic

Of the factors which shaped American society in the Cold War era, the fear of communism and its potential to spread imposed the greatest effect upon the United States. From the worldwide devastation of World War II arose two powers: United States of America, fueled by a capitalist economy, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR, whose economy embodied the communist ideals of Karl Marx. Marx himself stated, “Communism is already acknowledged by all...powers to be in itself a power”. Marx predicted the power of a communistic society well before the first World War began. In the wake of the devastation

Communism played a major role shaping the 20th century, both for the East and the United States. Its impact can be seen in the US from 1919 to the 1990s and even today. The spread of Communist ideals in the East meant the beginning of the socialist state and mass industrialization. Its effect on the US was much different. The United States people, heavily diversified of all races, religions, and financial statuses, became extremely jingoistic as a result of competition with the USSR. This nationalism became unhealthy as citizens began determining what was “un-American.” The Communist Party USA was not successful in their primary objective of spreading communism to the US. What they did achieve however was hugely important. They showed that citizens of the United States could be scared out of their own freedom. That fear would lead them to give up “liberty and justice for all”. Still a highly misunderstood idea, it is important for citizens of the United States to understand what communism is and what impact the CPUSA and other communist organizations had on the country.

Art has evolved and regenerated itself many times during our human existence. These differences are defined through changes in styles under various theories. During the nineteenth and early twentieth century, a style known as Expressionism became popular. During this movement the artists were trying to use their artwork as a tool of expression toward life. It was mainly dominant in the nonrepresentational arts, such as abstract visual arts and music. It also was probably one of the most difficult movements to understand because the whole point of the piece lay within the artist. Not only was it a movement, it defined the act of art as a whole. From the beginning of time, each work of art, excluding replicas, show a way of expressing

The countries using “communism” as their ideology were not really practicing the socialist ideas of Marx. In the fifties what America and the other democratic nations were beginning to learn about these places is that they were the most abhorrent strippers of human values and rights. Especially the paranoid dictator Joseph Stalin who took the “kill first and ask questions later” approach to problems. Stalinist Russia had some of the worst of the world’s slave labor camps known as the Gulag Archipelago. Whitfeild showed where our fears were manifested the best by giving credit to Stalinist Russia for “the largest killing fields of the twentieth century.

In order to discuss pop art I have chosen to examine the work and to some extent lives of Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol who were two of the main forces behind the American movement. I intend to reflect the attitudes of the public and artists in America at this time, while examining the growing popularity of pop art from its rocky, abstract expressionist start in the 1950s through the height of consumer culture in the 60s and 70s to the present day.

“The Cold War became a dominant influence on many aspects of American society for much of the second half of the twentieth century. It escalated due to antagonist values between the United States, representing capitalism and democracy, and the Soviet Union, representing communism and authoritarianism” (Tradshad, par. 1). This long lasting war had a lot of negative effects on the American people, but also helped many in a positive way of becoming free citizens. Although most people had feelings of hatred toward the Soviet Union, a sense of fear swept over the United States and many actions had to be taken to keep the enemy and their influences out. 4 done.

The concept of free-market played an essential role in making American people in the 1960s believe that it is important for them to fight communism through any means possible. Consumerism had reached a point where it had become indispensable and the benefits that it brought along made it difficult and virtually impossible for the community to express interest in economic systems other than capitalism. One of the principal reasons why the Cold War occurred relates to the West's obsession with materialism and with the fact that this precious concept could be destroyed as a result of communist ideas pervading the Western society.

The valid proof of the CIA involvement with the abstract expressionism would be possible only if relevant CIA documentation would be ever published. Until then, there is a room for speculation and logical “connecting of the dots” that we see in Eva Cockroft essay. The book by Frances Stonor Saunders published in 2001, “The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters” explores the same subject and yet, employs only the indirect evidence. Although we can guess whether popularization of the abstract expressionism was a clandestine CIA’s operation or not, the fact is: the abstract expressionism has been was turned into the ideological counterbalance for the socialist realism proliferated by the former Soviet Union. In the former

Modernism has found new expressions in art which in turn have changed how people critic and understand art, in this essay I am going to focus more on abstract expressionism. Debates in this movement have gone as far as influencing many artists and the two well-known critics who have made this movement more remarkable and have changed the art world completely are Clement Greenberg and Ronald Rosenberg. On the writings of these two gentlemen about art I will try to draw out the differences in the idea of what abstract expressionism is and what it is supposed to be, compare and outline the similarities and the differences between the two critics.

Before minimalism in the 1950s, the dominant art movement in the United States was Abstract Expressionism. The artists at that time’s goal were to express their personal emotions through their artwork (“Introduction to Minimal Art”). One popular branch of Abstract Expressionism was called Action Painting. This style of painting was spontaneous; paint would be

To better understand the nature of Sino-Soviet relations in the twentieth century, one must analyze the emergence of communism in the respective nations of Russia and China. Communism was first developed by German philosopher Karl Marx in the 1800s, and is defined as a socioeconomic policy structured around the common ownership of property in the absence of any social distinctions such as class, wealth, or race. Marx saw this arrangement as the zenith of human society, the paragon of interaction where the resources of economic production are fully socialized and everything, from basic nutrition to education, is freely allocated based on necessity. These egalitarian doctrines and policies of social, economic, and political freedom greatly appeased to the working-class populations in politically oppressed regions of the world, especially in the situations of the repressed poor and peasant classes of early twentieth-century Russian and Chinese societies.