Abstract expressionism is a post–World War 11 art movement American painting, developed in New York in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris. Although the term “abstract expressionism” was first applied to American art in 1946 by the art critic Robert Coates it had been first used in Germany in 1919 in the magazine Der Sturm regarding German Expressionism.  In the  United States lfred Barr was the first to use this term in 1929 in relation to works by Wassily Kandinsky.

I watched the film of Pollock by Hans Namuth.

It was interesting to hear him narrate whilst painting.  It was also interesting to watch him painting on glass.  There was an unheard rhythm, a flow and repetition, almost as though he was listening to silent music.  (This may be relevant to Assignment 3).   I have transcribed some of the dialogue that I found interesting.

I don’t work from drawings or coloured sketches.  My painting is direct….Having the canvas on the floor, I feel nearer, more a part of the painting…I can be in the painting, similar to the Indian Sand Painters of the West.  A method of painting that has a natural growth, has a need; I want to express my emotions, rather than illustrate them.  The technique is just a means of arriving at a statement….Because a painting has a life of its own, I try to let it live……I lost contact with my first painting on glass and started another one. 

Here, then, was an aspect of painting that still appeared to be unexplored – the handling of paint regardless of any ulterior motive or purpose….Jackson Pollock…becoming impatient of conventional methods, he put his canvas on the floor and dripped, poured or threw his paint to form surprising configurations.  He probably remembered stories of Chinese painters, who had used such unorthodox methods an also the practice of American Indians who make pictures in the sand for magic purposes.  The resulting tangle of lines satisfies two opposing standards of twentieth-century art: the longing for childlike simplicity and spontaneity…(E.H. Gombrich, 2011:602).

I think that the Abstract Expressionism work of artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning was an attempt to break away from the traditions of figurative painting.  Traditionally the art world had been dominated by European Art and Abstract Expressionism offered something new and exciting from America.

The modern was a highly contested area. This is the years where people were emerging from the shadows of the second world war and still trying to find the an appropriate artistic language for the time.  Chris Stephens, curator Tate

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_expressionism

http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/abstract-expressionism