Yet beyond New York, there were many art movements which were also moving away from representation in favour of abstraction. With Abstract Expressionism, New York became the new centre of the art world. The colour field artists were searching for transcendence, and their expansive, emotive fields of colour were meant to engulf the viewer and inspire spiritual contemplation and intense feeling. These artists were painting simple compositions with large areas of usually a single flat colour which were meant to produce a contemplative or meditative response. The term colour field painting was first used in 1955 by Clement Greenberg to refer to the work of Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Clyfford Still.

Pollock, with his large drip paintings, is arguably the most well known action painter. Arshile Gorky, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock were all considered action painters. The art critic Harold Rosenberg coined the term action painting in his article “The American Action Painters,” which was published in ARTnews in December 1952. Their working process involved splashing and dripping paint on the canvas, and they often used wild, course, gestural brushstrokes instead of carefully applying paint. The action painters were Abstract Expressionist artists whose approach to painting focused on the physical act of painting. Within Abstract Expressionism, we can differentiate between two tendencies: the action painters and the colour field painters. The Abstract Expressionists expressed emotions and universal themes through their often monumental canvases in a style which fit with the post-war mood of trauma and anxiety. They also gravitated towards existentialist philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre. The Abstract Expressionists were deeply influenced by the idea of exploring the unconscious which reigned in Surrealism, and by the ideas of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and his exploration of myths and archetypes. The European influence taught artists about the formal innovations of Cubism, and the automatism and psychological underpinnings of Surrealism.

Many artists trained at the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts, founded by the German painter Hans Hofmann, or at the experimental Black Mountain College in North Carolina, where Joseph Albers taught. These artists brought with them ideas and practices of European Modernism. The rise of fascism in 1930s Europe and the resulting war had brought a wave of immigrant artists over to the United States. They became known as the Abstract Expressionists.

In the years following World War II, a group of artists who rejected figuration in favour of abstraction emerged in the United States. Key artists: Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Elaine de Kooning, Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still, Franz Kline, Harold Shapinsky, Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Cy Twombly, Ann Ryan, Ad Reinhardt.Key words: action painting, colour field painting, New York School, spirituality, emotional expression, spontaneity, gestural mark-making, sublime.These artists came to be known as the Abstract Expressionists. They instead sought refuge in the abstract realm, encouraging meditation and introspection. These artists felt they could no longer continue to paint figures after the horrors of the war. In 1940s and 1950s New York, a new art movement started emerging in which artists began exploring expression of emotions and feeling through abstract, gestural mark-making and imposing colour fields. “We felt the moral crisis of a world in shambles, a world destroyed by a great depression and a fierce World War, and it was impossible at that time to paint the kind of paintings that we were doing-flowers, reclining nudes, and people playing the cello.” Barnett NewmanĪfter a world war that is so vicious, so cruel, how can we simply continue with life, and art, in the same way as before? This is the question many artists were asking themselves after the Second World War.

Lyrical abstraction contemporary art