Abstract Expressionism  
        
 

"The Molten Hill"                                                 60" x 108"                                              Iran Lawrence

       Abstract Expressionism, a movement in mid-20th-century painting that was primarily concerned with the spontaneous assertion of the artist’s attitudes and emotions through the act of painting with little or no pictorial representation. The movement contains a variety of styles and is characterized more by the concepts behind the art than by a specific look. It is done through deliberate use of the subconscious and spontaneity in creating the art. Generally, abstract expressionist art is without recognizable images and does not adhere to the boundaries of conventional form.

       The arrival of such Avant-Garde¹ European painters such as Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Marc Chagall, and Yves Tanguy in New York City during World War II (1939-1945) inspired the use of abstract expressionism among American painters in the 1940s and 1950s. American painters were also influenced by the subjective abstractions of the Armenian-born painter Arshile Gorky, who had immigrated to the United States in 1920, and by the German-born American painter and teacher Hans Hofmann, who stressed the dynamic interaction of colored planes to convey depth.

       The abstract expressionist movement centered in New York City and is also called the New York school. Although the styles embraced within abstract expressionism were as diverse as the styles of the painters themselves, two major tendencies were noted in the movement. Action painters were concerned with paint texture and consistency and the gestures of the artist, while color field painters gave their works impact by using unified color and shape. Jackson Pollock was the quintessential action painter. His unique approach to painting involved interlacing lines of dripped and poured paint that seemed to extend in unending arabesques of interlacing patterns; often using broad impasto of thickly applied brush strokes to create rhythmic abstractions in virtually infinite space. Mark Rothko created pulsating rectangles of saturated color in his works; many of these works are prime examples of color-field painting. Barnett Newman , Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Francis, Robert Motherwell and Clifford Still combined elements of both action and color-field painting in their works.

1- Avant-Garde - sector of the arts that draws its inspiration from the invention and application of new or unconventional techniques and     is therefore on the vanguard or cutting edge of new styles. Participants in the creative process can be considered members of the avant-garde. 


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