Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of
painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...
in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical act of painting itself as an essential aspect of the finished work or concern of its artist.
Background
The style was widespread from the 1940s until the early 1960s, and is closely associated with
abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
(some critics have used the terms "action painting" and "
abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
" interchangeably).
A comparison is often drawn between the American action painting and the French
tachisme
__NOTOC__
Tachisme (alternative spelling: Tachism, derived from the French word ''tache'', stain) is a French style of abstract painting popular in the 1940s and 1950s. The term is said to have been first used with regards to the movement in 19 ...
.
The New York School of American Abstract Expressionism (1940s-50s) is also seen as closely linked to the movement.
The term was coined by the American critic
Harold Rosenberg
Harold Rosenberg (February 2, 1906 – July 11, 1978) was an American writer, educator, philosopher and art critic. He coined the term Action Painting in 1952 for what was later to be known as abstract expressionism. Rosenberg is best known for ...
in 1952, in his essay "The American Action Painters",
and signaled a major shift in the aesthetic perspective of
New York School painters and critics. According to Rosenberg the canvas was "an arena in which to act".
The actions and means for creating the painting were seen, in action painting, of a higher importance than the end result.
While Rosenberg created the term "action painting" in 1952, he began creating his action theory in the 1930s as a critic. While abstract expressionists such as
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...
,
Franz Kline
Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mot ...
and
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...
had long been outspoken in their view of a painting as an arena within which to come to terms with the act of creation, earlier critics sympathetic to their cause, like
Clement Greenberg
Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formali ...
, focused on their works' "objectness." Clement Greenberg was also an influential critic in action painting, intrigued by the creative struggle, which he claimed was evidenced by the surface of the painting.
To Greenberg, it was the physicality of the paintings' clotted and oil-caked surfaces that was the key to understanding them. "Some of the labels that became attached to Abstract Expressionism, like "informel" and "Action Painting," definitely implied this; one was given to understand that what was involved was an utterly new kind of art that was no longer art in any accepted sense. This was, of course, absurd." – Clement Greenberg, "Post Painterly Abstraction".
Rosenberg's critique shifted the emphasis from the object to the struggle itself, with the finished painting being only the physical manifestation, a kind of residue, of the actual work of art, which was in the act or process of the painting's creation. The newer research tends to put the exile-surrealist
Wolfgang Paalen
Wolfgang Robert Paalen (July 22, 1905 in Vienna, Austria – September 24, 1959 in Taxco, Mexico) was an Austrian-Mexican painter, sculptor, and art philosopher. A member of the Abstraction-Création group from 1934 to 1935, he joined the influ ...
in the position of the artist and theoretician who used the term "action" at first in this sense and fostered the theory of the subjective struggle with it. In his theory of the viewer-dependent possibility space, in which the artist "acts" like in an ecstatic ritual, Paalen considers ideas of
quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, ...
, as well as idiosyncratic interpretations of the totemic vision and the spatial structure of native-Indian painting from British Columbia. His long essay ''Totem Art'' (1943) had considerable influence on such artists as
Martha Graham,
Barnett Newman,
Isamu Noguchi
was an American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public artworks, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and severa ...
,
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...
and
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Latv ...
; Paalen describes a highly artistic vision of totemic art as part of a ritual "action" with psychic links to genetic memory and matrilinear ancestor-worship.
Over the next two decades, Rosenberg's redefinition of art as an act rather than an object, as a process rather than a product, was influential, and laid the foundation for a number of major art movements, from
Happening
A happening is a performance, event, or situation art, usually as performance art. The term was first used by Allan Kaprow during the 1950s to describe a range of art-related events.
History
Origins
Allan Kaprow first coined the term "happen ...
s and
Fluxus
Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...
to
Conceptual
Conceptual may refer to:
Philosophy and Humanities
*Concept
*Conceptualism
*Philosophical analysis (Conceptual analysis)
*Theoretical definition (Conceptual definition)
*Thinking about Consciousness (Conceptual dualism)
*Pragmatism (Conceptual pr ...
,
Performance art
Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
,
Installation art
Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...
and
Earth Art
Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United StatesArt in the modern era: A guide to styles, schools, & mov ...
.
Historical context
It is essential for the understanding of action painting to place it in historical context. The action painting movement took place in the time after World War II ended. With this came a disordered economy and culture in Europe, and in America the government took advantage of their new state of importance.
A product of the
post-World War II
The aftermath of World War II was the beginning of a new era started in late 1945 (when World War II ended) for all countries involved, defined by the decline of all colonial empires and simultaneous rise of two superpowers; the Soviet Union (US ...
artistic resurgence of
expressionism
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
in
America
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
and more specifically
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, action painting developed in an era where
quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, ...
and
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
were beginning to flourish and were changing people's perception of the physical and psychological world; and civilization's understanding of the world through heightened
self-consciousness
Self-consciousness is a heightened sense of awareness of oneself. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. Historically, "self-consciousness" was synonymous with "self-awareness", referring to a state of awareness that ...
and awareness.
American action painters pondered the nature of art as well as the reasons for the existence of art often when questioning what the value of action painting is.
The preceding art of
Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...
and
Mondrian had freed itself from the portrayal of objects and instead tried to evoke, address and delineate, through the aesthetic sense, emotions and feelings within the viewer. ''Action painting'' took this a step further, using both
Jung and
Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts in ...
’s ideas of the
subconscious
In psychology, the subconscious is the part of the mind that is not currently of focal awareness.
Scholarly use of the term
The word ''subconscious'' represents an anglicized version of the French ''subconscient'' as coined in 1889 by the psycho ...
as its underlying foundations. Many of the painters were interested in Carl Jung's studies of archetypal images and types, and used their own internal visions to create their paintings.
Along with Jung, Sigmund Freud and Surrealism were also influential to the beginning of action painting.
The paintings of the Action painters were not meant to portray objects per se or even specific emotions. Instead they were meant to touch the observer deep in the subconscious mind, evoking a sense of the
primeval
Primeval may refer to:
* Primeval forest, an area of forest that has attained great age
* Primeval number, a positive integer satisfying certain conditions
* Primeval history, name given by biblical scholars to the first eleven chapters of the Bo ...
and tapping the collective sense of an
archetypal
The concept of an archetype (; ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, and literary analysis.
An archetype can be any of the following:
# a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main model that o ...
visual language. This was done by the artist painting "unconsciously," and spontaneously, creating a powerful arena of raw emotion and action, in the moment. Action painting was clearly influenced by the
surrealist
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...
emphasis on
automatism which (also) influenced by psychoanalysis claimed a more direct access to the
subconscious mind
In psychology, the subconscious is the part of the mind that is not currently of focal awareness.
Scholarly use of the term
The word ''subconscious'' represents an anglicized version of the French ''subconscient'' as coined in 1889 by the psycho ...
. Important exponents of this concept of art making were the painters
Joan Miró
Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , , ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona i ...
and
André Masson
André-Aimé-René Masson (4 January 1896 – 28 October 1987) was a French artist.
Biography
Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but when he was eight his father's work took the family first briefly to Lille and then to Brussel ...
.
Notable action painters
*
Ana Hatherly
Ana Hatherly (8 May 1929 – 5 August 2015) was a Portuguese academic, poet, visual artist, essayist, film maker, painter and writer. She was considered one of the pioneers of the experimental poetry and experimental literature movement in Portuga ...
*
Frank Avray Wilson
Frank Avray Wilson (3 May 1914 – 1 January 2009) was a British artist, author and vegetarian. He was one of the first British artists to use Tachist or action painting techniques.
*
Norman Bluhm
Norman Bluhm (March 28, 1921 – February 3, 1999), was an American painter classified as an abstract expressionist, and as an action painter.
Biography
He was born on March 28, 1921 in Chicago, Illinois. His father Henry Bluhm was of Polish ...
*
James Brooks
*
Nicolas Carone
Nicolas Carone (June 4, 1917 – July 15, 2010) belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists. Their artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized internationally, including in London and Paris. New ...
*
Elaine de Kooning
Elaine Marie Catherine de Kooning (, née Fried; March 12, 1918 – February 1, 1989) was an Abstract Expressionist and Figurative Expressionist painter in the post-World War II era. She wrote extensively on the art of the period and was an edit ...
*
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...
*
Perle Fine
Perle Fine (born Poule Feine)(1905–1988) was an American Abstract expressionist painter.[Sam Francis
Samuel Lewis Francis (June 25, 1923 – November 4, 1994) was an American painter and printmaker.
Early life
Sam Francis was born in San Mateo, California,](_blank)
*
Michael Goldberg
*
William Green
*
Ismail Gulgee
Ismail Gulgee (Urdu: ; 25 October 1926 – 16 December 2007), also known simply as Gulgee, was a Pakistani painter.
Born in Peshawar, he received his early education at Lawrence College before attending Aligarh University, Columbia Uni ...
*
Philip Guston
Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980), was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. Early in his five decade career, muralist David Siquieros described him as one of "the most promising ...
*
Grace Hartigan
Grace Hartigan (March 28, 1922 – November 15, 2008) was an American Abstract Expressionist painter and a significant member of the vibrant New York School of the 1950s and 1960s. Her circle of friends, who frequently inspired one another in t ...
*
Franz Kline
Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mot ...
*
Albert Kotin
Albert Kotin (August 7, 1907 – February 6, 1980) belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists whose artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized across the Atlantic, including in Paris. The New Y ...
*
Lee Krasner
Lenore "Lee" Krasner (born Lena Krassner; October 27, 1908 – June 19, 1984) was an American abstract expressionist painter, with a strong speciality in collage. She was married to Jackson Pollock. Although there was much cross-pollination be ...
*
Alfred Leslie
Alfred Leslie (born October 29, 1927) is an American artist and filmmaker. He first achieved success as an Abstract Expressionist painter, but changed course in the early 1960s and became a painter of realistic figurative paintings.
Biography
...
*
Conrad Marca-Relli
Conrad Marca-Relli (born Corrado Marcarelli; June 5, 1913 – August 29, 2000) was an American artist who belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists whose artistic innovation by the 1950s had been reco ...
*
Georges Mathieu
Georges Mathieu (27 January 1921 – 10 June 2012) was a French abstract painter, art theorist, and member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He is considered one of the fathers of European lyrical abstraction, a trend of informalism.
Bi ...
*
Joan Mitchell
Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...
*
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...
*
Milton Resnick
Milton Resnick (January 7, 1917 – March 12, 2004) was an American artist noted for abstract paintings that coupled scale with density of incident. It was not uncommon for some of the largest paintings to weigh in excess three hundred pounds, a ...
*
Joe Stefanelli
*
Jack Tworkov
Jack Tworkov (15 August 1900 – 4 September 1982) was an American abstract expressionist painter.
Biography
Yakov Tworkovsky, more commonly known as Jack Tworkov, was born in Biała Podlaska on the border between Poland and the Russian Emp ...
Exhibitions
* Action Painting
** Organized by Ulf Küster. Fondation Beyekerm Basekm Switzerland, January 27-May 12, 2008
* Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940-1976
** Organized by Norman L. Kleeblatt. Jewish Museum, New York, May 4-September 21, 2008
See also
*
Tachisme
__NOTOC__
Tachisme (alternative spelling: Tachism, derived from the French word ''tache'', stain) is a French style of abstract painting popular in the 1940s and 1950s. The term is said to have been first used with regards to the movement in 19 ...
*
Michel Tapié
Michel Tapié (full name: Michel Tapié de Céleyran; 26 February 1909 – 30 July 1987) was a French art critic, curator, and collector. He was an early and influential theorist and practitioner of "tachisme", a French style of abstract painti ...
*
Gutai group
The was a Japanese avant-garde artist group founded in the Hanshin region by young artists under the leadership of the painter Jirō Yoshihara in Ashiya, Japan, in 1954.
The group, today one of the most internationally-recognized instances of ...
*
Abstract Imagists
*
New York School
*
Abstract Expressionism
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
*
Lyrical abstraction
Lyrical abstraction is either of two related but distinct trends in Post-war Modernist painting:
''European Abstraction Lyrique'' born in Paris, the French art critic Jean José Marchand being credited with coining its name in 1947, considered ...
*
9th Street Art Exhibition
The 9th Street Art Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture is the official title artist Franz Kline hand-lettered onto the poster he designed for the Ninth Street Show (May 21-June 10, 1951).
*
Tenth Street galleries
The 10th Street galleries was a collective term for the co-operative galleries that operated mainly in the East Village on the east side of Manhattan, in New York City in the 1950s and 1960s. The galleries were artist run and generally operate ...
References and notes
* Rosenberg, Harold ''The Tradition of the New'' (1959) - Ayer Co Pub -
* Wills, Garry ''Action Painting in Venice'' (1994)
* Marika Herskovic
''American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey,''(New York School Press, 2003.)
* Marika Herskovic
''New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists,''(New York School Press, 2000.)
* Hrebeniak, Michael. ''Action Writing: Jack Kerouac's Wild Form'', Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 2006.
External links
Auction record including a color image of a 1960 action paintingby
Elaine Hamilton.
''9th Street Art Exhibition-abstract expressionist artists reminisce''YouTube video
{{DEFAULTSORT:Action Painting
Modern art
Contemporary art movements
Abstract expressionism
Art Informel and Tachisme
Painting techniques
Western art