Key Ideas, Theories & Themes: Abstract Expressionism

Background:

Up until the twentieth century, it is commonly understood that American art had failed to match up to that of its European counterparts. America’s lack of recognition as a leading nation for art prior to this moment wasn’t down to the fact that they simply weren’t producing ‘good Art’, (the Ashcan School and Social Realism painters come to mind!). Europe had been the hub for creativity, and Paris especially had dominated the art world of the nineteenth century.

The Abstract Expressionists marked a pivotal moment for American art, not simply placing New York on the world art map - these artists gained international influence, became the avant-garde of the twentieth century and the cultural capital of the world.

Context:

The aftermath of the Second World War positioned America with both economic and military independence, whereas France had lost everything during the war - they were not economically or politically strong enough to protest the shift of the art capital from Paris to New York. With America’s newfound prosperity in a world changed by the horrors of war, America had the opportunity to reconstruct its society, reform politics and of course, regenerate its culture. So why did the majority of American painters shift from depicting realistic propaganda in the 1930s to the abstract avant-garde in the 1940s?

There are many reasons around as to why this change occurred - first and foremost, artists were faced with the dilemma of what to paint - and how to paint - in a world after two World Wars. Many artists emigrated to America fleeing fascism during the war, continuing European modernist traditions and teachings; others such as Clyfford Still, disillusioned by war, left behind the European traditions altogether. There was a period in which artists felt incredibly lost, in search of a style which could provide a true national and personal identity with authenticity.

“…after the monstrosity of the war, what do we do? What is there to paint? We have to start all over again.”

- Barnett Newman

The original feeling of inferiority that American artists endured prior to this moment began to fade; encounters with European artists and modernist art encouraged New York artists to develop a national style at time when Paris was falling as a result of war.

Secondly, Abstract Expressionism in all its non-representational glory, fitted perfectly into the Cold War years - it was neither extreme left nor right, a political apoliticism you might say, produced out of the frustrations of the communist left and unlike that of the conservative right. The ideologies of a new liberalism in America matched the ideologies of Abstract Expressionism and for the first time, avant-garde art in America was promoted and supported. Abstraction allowed artists freedom through the very same means in which make these works so hard to read - through its illegibility and inaccessibility. Claude Cernuuschi summarises it perfectly in his article The Politics of Abstract Expressionism: “…[Abstract Expressionism was] ineffective in raising social consciousness, unable to reflect the social realities affecting our lives, avant-garde art and literature could neither serve a meaningful social purpose nor contribute to changing the status quo”. The McCarthy era was a period of heavy artistic censorship in America and Abstract Expressionism, with its abstract qualities was seen as apolitical meaning artists could work - and sell - paintings successfully.

Inspiration:

Regarding themes within Abstract Expressionist works, we come to the third point which is these artists intentions and the aims of their work. Surely these abstract works had to mean something? It’s difficult to say for sure because no Abstract Expressionist was similar to the next - they all had their own ways of doing things despite being seen as a collective. One thing that did seem to resonate between these artists was a spiritual element in their work. Many New York School artists looked to the Surrealists who often explored the unconscious, as well as psychoanalysis and the theories of Carl Jung which were popular at the time. Jung identified certain myths and archetypes which he called a collective unconscious - symbols which the likes of Adolph Gottlieb, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko used in their paintings to evoke certain emotions in the spectator.

Questioning what we see in these paintings, and what meaning they carry, might be missing the mark altogether though. A huge emphasis on these works, in the eyes of critics, collectors and historians alike suggest that a great emphasis was put on the making of rather than what was depicted on the canvas itself. As the avid supporter of the action-painters, Harold Rosenberg once said: “What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event” and that what was left behind, the canvas, was simply residue.

Considering that during this period in history there was such advances in technology, the uprising of the automobile, cinema and the movies, it is no wonder that process and movement played a vital role in their work in a world which had no time to stand still.


Bibliography:

Cernuschi, C., ‘The Politics of Abstract Expressionism’ in Craven, D., Abstract Expressionism as Cultural Critique: Dissent During the McCarthy Period, Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999, p.232

Guilbaut, S., How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art: Abstract Expressionism, Freedom and the Cold War, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983