ART 330

The events of World War II shook the foundation of all that the West knew about what it meant to be human; the horrors of the Holocaust followed by the destruction caused when America dropped two atomic bombs on Japan on top of the already monumental devastation of the bombing campaigns left people with little hope to rely on. What had been a weakened belief following World War I that humanity was basically good was reduced, like the landscape, to rubble. Out of this destruction rose an anxiety and sense of uncertainly about what “life” meant, if anything at all, that is found in the work of the photographers, philosophers, painters, sculptors, dancers, and musicians of the decade.

Chapter 38 in The Humanities: Culture, Continuity, and Change by Sayre, H. M.

At a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one American painter after another as an arena in which to act. What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event.”

 

-Harold Rosenberg

Abstract Expressionists, many of whom formerly worked in the Surrealist mode, used their craft to explore their subconscious informed by the anxiety that stemmed from the existential implications of the age, offering an artistic representation of life’s isolation and lack of inherent meaning, as well as insisting on action as the imperative for meaningfulness and value.

The work of the displaced European Surrealists heavily influenced American artists who had begun exploring the depths of the unconscious in their work, often informed and guided by Freudian and Jungian psychoanalysis, but sometimes uncomfortable with the obvious symbolism of their work. These American artists moved more toward a more abstract representation.

The Abstract Expressionist movement gained in popularity largely due to the notoriety of Jackson Pollack, whose work was featured in a Time magazine article. People began asking, “What is art?” and “Is that art?”….questions they would ask of themselves often as Contemporary Art evolved.

Summing up Abstract Expressionism

As the 1950s drew to a close, the style of Abstract Expressionism began to give way to new styles and modes of expression. Certainly, the Action Art painters were influenced by or borrowed directly from the French existentialists. They had united in their belief and efforts to demonstrate that meaning exists not just in the painting itself, but in the very act of creating, and that art could serve as both the expression of the inner self as well as the means by which one can transcend social, cultural, and intellectual despair.  

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “The crisis of war and its aftermath are key to understanding the concerns of the Abstract Expressionists. These young artists, troubled by man's dark side and anxiously aware of human irrationality and vulnerability, wanted to express their concerns in a new art of meaning and substance. Direct contact with European artists increased as a result of World War II, which caused so many—including Dalí, Ernst, Masson, Breton, Mondrian, and Léger—to seek refuge in the U.S. …For Abstract Expressionists, the authenticity or value of a work lay in its directness and immediacy of expression. A painting is meant to be a revelation of the artist's authentic identity. The gesture, the artist's 'signature,' is evidence of the actual process of the work's creation.”

 

Harold Rosenberg spoke of the transformation of painting during this era of abstraction when he claimed, “The big moment came when it was decided to paint ‘just to paint’. The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation from value—political, aesthetic, moral.”

Further Reading

Go to the Links tab under More Tools to visit the following information:

 

· World War II: Liberation photos. To more fully comprehend the magnitude of devastation these painters and sculptors were witness to, visit this photo-essay of images from the liberation of the concentration camps (warning: images are graphic and potentially disturbing).

· Abstract Expressionists: City Square. Check out a short but fascinating analysis of “City Square.”

· Surrealism: Pollock. View a quick video of Pollack describing his process while in the act of creating.

· Abstract Expressionists: Willem de Kooning. De Kooning used abstraction to obliterate a realistic perception of the human figure. He is best known for his series of paintings entitled Woman. To see the first painting in this series, virtually visit the Museum of Modern Art