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Abstract expressionism paintings

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Abstract expressionism: art of chaotic forms

Abstract expressionism is a major movement of anti-figurative painting that originated in the 40s of the twentieth century. Its representatives sought to realize the potential of the creative unconscious of our psyche by abandoning composition and all forms in favor of free expression and improvisation. Almost all prominent representatives of abstract expressionism lived in the United States, so it absorbed the ideological concepts of American culture. The term "expressionism" was coined by the Czech art historian Antonin Matejcek in 1910, as opposed to the term "impressionism". He explains it this way: “The expressionist wants, above all, to express himself. The expressionist denies the immediate impression and builds more complex mental structures. Impressions and mental images pass through the human soul as through a filter that frees them from everything superficial in order to reveal their pure essence, and are combined, condensed into more general forms, types, which the author rewrites through simple formulas and symbols."

The emergence and development of abstract expressionism. Famous artists

The European anti-figurative aesthetics of synthetic cubism, Bauhaus and futurism had a noticeable influence on the formation of the new direction. From them, the masters of abstract expressionism borrowed the emotional intensity and self-denial that became the hallmark of the movement. The artists' motivation was also influenced by the Great Depression and World War II. Both of these events strengthened the influence of the state on public life, one of the manifestations of which was censorship.

The phrase “abstract expressionism” first appeared in 1919 on the pages of the Berlin magazine “Der Sturm” in an article by the German art critic E. von Sydow. It was used to refer to certain aspects of expressionist art. In 1929, Alfred Barr first used this term to describe the early works of Kandinsky, who is considered the direct founder of this movement in painting. And finally, on March 30, 1946, in the New Yorker, Robert Coates, in an article about an exhibition at the Mortimer Brandt Gallery, assigned the term “abstract expressionism” to the work of a specific group of artists, writing about the artist Hans Hofmann: “He is undoubtedly one of the most uncompromising representatives of what some people call the Kalyak-Malyakov school of painting, which I more respectfully dubbed abstract expressionism.”

Abstract Expressionism, with its commitment to the rejection of composition and form, allowed artists to transcend limitations and eliminate even the slightest hint of political context.

This direction subsequently continued the “liberation” of art begun by Kandinsky and the surrealists from the control of the mind and any logical laws, from the traditional laws of color relationships. The motto of the abstract expressionists was the formula formed by Karl Ruhrberg: “Liberation from rules, liberation from formalism, from the dominance of the ruler and compass, but first of all – liberation of freely flowing color from doctrinaire laws of form.” The movement itself arose in the forties of the 20th century under the influence of the ideas of Andre Breton. Initially it was called “abstract surrealism”. The main centers of its origin were Paris and the USA. Among the representatives of this trend, two “groups” can be roughly distinguished, whose representatives gravitated towards different techniques. For example, in their work, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning used an energetic style that was later called “action painting.” In the process of working, the artists literally spilled and splattered paint on the canvas.

But representatives of “color field painting” (Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman) gravitated towards creating simple compositions through color zoning of the canvas. According to the artists, the paintings were supposed to evoke mystical and religious experiences in viewers. At exhibitions, masters often placed their works in such a way that they surrounded visitors on all sides. The direction reached the peak of its development in the 50s. After which, in American fine art there was a gradual turn towards object painting, saturated with easy-to-perceive images.

In the United States, abstract expressionism arose thanks to European artists, poets and writers who found refuge there from Nazism during World War II. Among the artists who arrived in New York were Marcel Duchamp, André Breton, André Masson, Marc Chagall, Fernand Léger and Piet Mondrian. Their circle immediately included a whole group of American artists who borrowed the philosophy of creativity, ideas, and techniques from their European colleagues.

In the post-war period, the United States began to claim the role of a world center of culture, and New York - the world capital of art. However, it cannot be said that US efforts in this matter have been crowned with complete success. The palm in fine arts remained with France.

After the end of World War II, European art experienced a resurgence. Many artists who had fled Nazism during the war years returned home. Alongside already existing movements such as Cubism, Surrealism, and Dadaism, entirely new directions began to emerge – Art Brut, Lyrical Abstraction, and the European equivalent of Abstract Expressionism – Tachisme. This period saw the rise of many renowned names – Serge Poliakoff, Georges Mathieu, Pierre Soulages, Jean Dubuffet, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, and Yves Klein. In many respects, these artists not only matched but often surpassed their American counterparts in Abstract Expressionism in terms of artistic merit.

In the 50s, the abstract expressionism movement acquired unprecedented proportions. It was then headed by artists Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. During these years, abstract expressionism became a kind of international movement in art, capturing almost all continents.

However, the role of the United States in the development and spread of this direction in painting cannot be denied. It was there that Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Philip Guston and others worked. And it was the American artist Jackson Pollock who in 1947 abandoned stretchers and, spreading the canvas on the floor, randomly sprayed paint on it from tubes or cans. This technique was called dripping, which translated from English meant “dripping.” Dripping has become one of the methods of so-called “action painting”, or “gesture painting”. The term was coined by American critic Harold Rosenberg in 1952.

Action painting negated the traditionally painted surface of the picture - paint was applied to paper or canvas, as a trace of a free gesture, an arbitrary movement of the hand. It was believed that the unconscious action is a reflection of the artist’s character, captured and laid out on canvas. This style was widespread until the early 60s of the 20th century.

Artistic features of abstract expressionism

Abstract Expressionist paintings are easily identified by their large sizes. Art critics suggest that such a love for space is dictated not only by the desire to captivate the viewer into the world of unbridled expression, but also by the craving for monumentalism inherent in the American mentality. Form in the paintings is almost completely absent, as is composition. Images on canvases are created using lines of different thicknesses and spots. Until 1947, paints were applied in the traditional way using brushes. Jackson Pollock invented his own drip irrigation technique. In this way, he managed to avoid the appearance of logically ordered forms on the canvas and more accurately convey the urges of the unconscious.

Later, the principles of Pollock's technique were actively borrowed by other representatives of this trend. The canvas became a projection of the master’s inner world, capturing the very process of creation in all its inconsistency and dynamism. Jazz helps to understand the “mechanics” of the work of abstract expressionists: many artists stated that they listened to it while working on their canvases.