Pollock's Galaxy, a part of the Joslyn Art Museum's permanent collection.

Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied.^[1] The resulting work often emphasizes the physical act of painting itself as an essential aspect of the finished work or concern of its artist. Jackson Pollocks Galaxy, a part of the Joslyn Art Museums permanent collection Taken 01/2005 by User:Rdsmith4. ... Jackson Pollocks Galaxy, a part of the Joslyn Art Museums permanent collection Taken 01/2005 by User:Rdsmith4. ... The museums tiled Fountain Court The museums main atrium (seen here from the south) contains a café and gift shop. ... For building painting, see painter and decorator. ...

Background

The style was widespread from the 1940s until the early 1960s, and is closely associated with abstract expressionism (some critics have used the terms "action painting" and "abstract expressionism" interchangeably). A comparison is often drawn between the American action painting and the French tachisme. This USPS stamp illustrates Pollocks drip technique. ... This USPS stamp illustrates Pollocks drip technique. ... Tachisme (alternative spelling: Tachism, derived from the French word tache - stain) was a French style of abstract painting in the 1940s and 1950s. ...

The term was coined by the American critic Harold Rosenberg in 1952^[2] 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". While abstract expressionists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning 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, focused on their works' "objectness." To Greenberg, it was the physicality of the paintings' clotted and oil-caked surfaces that was the key to understanding them as documents of the artists' existential struggle. Harold Rosenberg (February 2, 1906, New York City - July 11, 1978, New York City) was an American writer, educator, philosopher and art critic. ... The New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters and musicians active in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s in New York City. ... Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956) was an influential American painter and a major force in the abstract expressionist movement. ... Willem de Koonings Woman V (1952-53), National Gallery of Australia Willem de Kooning (April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was an abstract expressionist painter, born in Rotterdam, Netherlands. ... Clement Greenberg (January 16, 1909 - May 7, 1994) was an influential American art critic closely associated with the abstract art movement in the United States. ...

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.

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 Happenings and Fluxus to Conceptual and Earth Art. A happening is a performance, event or situation meant to be considered as art. ... Fluxus (from to flow) is an art movement noted for the blending of different artistic disciplines, primarily visual art but also music and literature. ... Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs (1965) Conceptual art is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. ... Land art or earth art is a form of art which came to prominence in the late 1960s and 1970s primarily concerned with the natural environment. ...

In an Aesthetic Realism Foundation study of Pollock's painting, Number One 1948, Lore Mariano shows how the aesthetic effect of this quintessential example of action painting arises from the way it is at once abandoned and accurate — that is, puts together the very opposites that "struggle" or are in conflict not only in the artist but in every individual.^[3] Aesthetic Realism is the philosophy founded by the American poet and critic Eli Siegel in 1941. ...

Historical context

It is essential for the understanding of this movement to place it in historical context. A product of the post-war artistic insurgence, it developed in an era where quantum mechanics and psychoanalysis were beginning to flourish and change the entire human civilization’s understating of the world and self-consciousness. Postmodernism (sometimes abbreviated as Pomo or PoMo) is a term used in a variety of contexts to describe social conditions, movements in the arts, economic and social conditions and scholarship from the perspective that there is a definable and differentiable period after the modern, or that the 20th century can... Fig. ... Psychoanalysis is a family of psychological theories and methods based on the work of Sigmund Freud. ... For the understanding that one exists, see Self-awareness. ...

The preceding art of Kandinsky and Mondrian, had attempted to detract itself from the portrayal of objects and instead tried to tingle and tantalize the emotions of the viewer. "Action Art" took this a step further, using Freud’s ideas of the subconscious as its underling foundations. The paintings of the Action Artists were not meant to portray any objects whatsoever and likewise were not meant to stimulate emotion. Instead they were meant to touch the observers deep in the subconscious. This was done by the Artist painting "unconsciously". On White II (Kandinsky 1923) Wassily Kandinsky (Russian: Василий Кандинский, first name sometimes spelled as Vasily, Vassily or Vasilii) (December 16, 1866 - December 13, 1944) was a Russian-born painter and art theorist. ... Mondrian can refer to: The artist, Piet Mondrian; A stimulus used in research into color perception, particularly color constancy. ... Sigmund Freud His famous couch Sigmund Freud (May 6, 1856 - September 23, 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology, a movement that popularized the theory that unconscious motives control much behavior. ... This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

The unconscious act

This spontaneous activity was the "action" of the painter. The painter would let the paint drip onto canvases, often simply dancing around, or even standing on the canvases, and simply letting the paint fall where the subconscious mind wills, thus letting the unconscious part of the psyche express itself. Look up Canvas in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

For example, in Jackson Pollock’s paintings one can often find cigarette stubs. Supposedly, when he created his paintings he would simply allow himself to slip into a trance in which no conscious act was to manifest itself; so if he had the instinctive impulse to throw his cigarette to the floor, he would allow himself do so letting the canvas take the place of the sidewalk or other ground in which a cigarette might normally be thrown.. Look up Trance in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

The effect the artist would like to portray to the viewer is observing someone smothering out their finished cigarette. Most of the time, the person will simply throw it to the ground without thinking of what is being done. The Action Painters tried to show this a type of un-thought or spontaneous action.

All this, however, is difficult to explain or interpret because it is a supposed unconscious manifestation.^[4]

Notable action painters

• Norman Bluhm
• Sam Francis
• Franz Kline
• Willem de Kooning
• Albert Kotin
• Lee Krasner
• Alfred Leslie
• Joan Mitchell
• Jackson Pollock
• Jack Tworkov
• Norman Lowell

Norman Bluhm (March 28, 1921-February 3, 1999), was an American painter classified as abstract expressionist. ... See also: other Sam Francises Samuel Lewis Francis (1923 - November 4, 1994) was an American painter and printmaker. ... Franz Klines Painting Number 2, 1954 Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 - May 13, 1962) was an American painter mainly associated with the Abstract Expressionist group which was centered, geographically, around New York, and temporally, in the 1940s and 1950s; but not limited to that setting. ... Willem de Koonings Woman V (1952-53), National Gallery of Australia Willem de Kooning (April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was an abstract expressionist painter, born in Rotterdam, Netherlands. ... Albert Kotin (1907 - 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 Paris. ... Jackson Pollock gets the big stone and Lee Krasner gets the small stone in Green River Cemetery in Springs, New York Lee Krasners painting Cool White (1959) Lee Krasner (October 27, 1908 - June 19, 1984) was an influential abstract expressionist painter in the second half of the 20th Century. ... Joan Mitchell (1925-1992) was a ‘Second Generation’ Abstract Expressionist painter. ... Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956) was an influential American painter and a major force in the abstract expressionist movement. ... Jack Tworkov (1900 – 1982) was born in Biala, Poland and immigrated to the United States when he was thirteen. ... Norman Lowell (born July 29, 1946[citation needed]) is the founder and leader of Imperium Europa, a Maltese political party which contested the July 2004 European Parliament Elections. ...

See also

• Ismail Gulgee
• Elaine Hamilton
• Michel Tapié

Ismail Gulgee (born 1926) is an award winning globally famous Pakistani artist. ... Elaine Hamilton-ONeal, oil on canvas, 48X28. Date unknown (probably early 1950s or late 1940s). ... Michel Tapié (Michel Tapié de Céleyran, 1909-1987) an internationally active French critic, curator, and collector of art, as well as an important artist in his own right, was an early and influential theorist and practitioner of tachisme, which is generally regarded as the European equivalent of abstract expressionism. ...

External link

• Auction record including a color image of a 1960 action painting by Elaine Hamilton.
• Fellow Drippers - this video formulates a new approach to understanding Jackson Pollock

Elaine Hamilton-ONeal, oil on canvas, 48X28. Date unknown (probably early 1950s or late 1940s). ...

References and notes

1. ^ Boddy-Evans, Marion. Art Glossary: Action Painting. About.com. Retrieved on 20 August, 2006.
2. ^ Rosenberg, Harold. The American Action Painters. poetrymagazines.org.uk. Retrieved on 20 August, 2006.
3. ^ Mariano, Lore. Jackson Pollock's Number One 1948 or - How Can We Be Abandoned and Accurate at the Same Time?. The Aesthetic Realism Foundation. Retrieved on 20 August, 2006.
4. ^ based (very) loosely on a lecture by Fred Orton at the Uni of Leeds and H. Geldzahler, New York Painting and Sculpture: 1940-1970, NY 1969

• Rosenberg, Harold The Tradition of the New (1959) - Ayer Co Pub - ISBN 0836921275
• Wills, Garry Action Painting in Venice (1994)
• American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey ISBN 0967799414
• New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists ISBN 0967799406
• Hrebeniak, Michael. Action Writing: Jack Kerouac's Wild Form, Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 2006.