Abstract Expressionism: Evolution of Post-War Pictorial Gesture

The liberation of the pictorial gesture is one of the most significant elements that distinguish the two art movements that developed at the end of the 1940s namely American Abstract Expressionism and Informale in Europe

hich became the dominant artistic movements in the first decade of the post-World War II period. his profound revolution of pictorial language - or evolution in the words of Jackson Pollock -

is a direct consequence of the alteration of space-time references that follows the technological advancements in the modern era. At the end of the World War II New York became the new economic and cultural center of the Western world

As a result of the Nazi and fascist persecution and of the world conflict in general, starting from the 1930s there has been a mass migration of politicians, intellectuals and artists moving from Europe to the United States.

The epicentre of Western artistic endeavours is shifted from Paris to New York where we see the emergence of a radical new pictorial movement called Abstract Expressionism. The leading exponents were a group of artists also known as “The School of New York”.

The name of the movement consists of the term "Expressionism" which recalls the early twentieth century German Expressionism  from which it incorporates the strong emotional intensity and the expression of the artist's subjectivity,

through paintings characterised by bright and intense colours spread all over the canvas with lumpy, dense and material brushstrokes. And the term "Abstract"

which signals the abandonment of figurative and naturalist painting styles in favour of an anti-figurative aesthetic. One of the most influential promoters of the movement was the art critic Clement Greenberg. It is worth mentioning in particular his 1955 essay "American-Type Painting".

While the major exhibition center of the first works of abstract expressionists was the gallery “Art of This Century", founded by the great American art collector and patron Peggy Guggenheim. Opened in New York from 1942 to 1947

the gallery exhibited mainly Surrealist works by European artists but soon also became an important center for meeting and promoting young emerging American artists. In 1948, after the end of the war, Peggy returned to Europe

and settled in Venice, where she opened the Peggy Guggheneim Collection today, one of the most important collections of European and American 20th Century Art housed in Italy. This movement has been divided by art historians into two main currents:

“Action Painting” and “Color Field Painting” Despite this division, we keep in mind that artists often refuse to belong to a specific movement

and, moreover, that many artists have been associated with both currents; therefore this subdivision is only indicative. Action painting is a gestural style of painting inspired by Surrealism, due to its emphasis on the spontaneous creation linked to the subconscious

and by the automatism of artists such as Joan Mirò and Vassily Kandinsky. the emphasis is therefore not on what the work represents but on the physical act of painting and on the artist's bold gestures.

Among the main artists associated with Action Painting we remember: Among the leading artists of this movement, we want to focus on the work of that artist who has become the emblem of the movement itself namely Jackson Pollock.

Pollock's work was influenced by Native American culture and by the work of Mexican muralists and surrealists. After spending his childhood in Arizona

in 1930 he joined his brother Charles in New York where they both studied painting with the realist painter Thomas Hart Benton In the early 1940s, Pollock started to adopt unorthodox techniques such as “dripping”, that brought him world-wide fame.

Pollock's painting technique consisted of moving, almost as he was dancing, around the canvas laid on the floor around the canvas laid on the floor while dripping and pouring the paints onto the fabric sometimes straight from the can, or with sticks and stiffened brushes.

In doing so, he eliminated the mediation of the brush in the pictorial act and he was no longer painting only with his hand but with the totality of his body. The artist's creative gesture thus translates directly into the resultant of the color splashed onto the canvas - without the mediation of a formal or figurative language.

Pollock drastically broke away from the Western tradition of figurative art not only as regards the subject of the work but also its execution, eliminating the use of the brush and the easel.

Furthermore, in Pollock's works the color is spread all over the entire surface of the canvas, thus losing a focal point within the work by working the whole surface in the same way, the artist is no longer forcing a perspective upon the viewer. In Pollock's works, the main subject represented is the physical act of painting itself.

For his particular pictorial style, in 1956 Pollock was nicknamed by TIME magazine "Jack the Dripper”. The same year the artist died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related car accident.

The term “Color Field Painting” was coined by critic Clement Greenberg in 1955 to indicate a painting characterised by large spots of color that entirely dominate the surface of the canvas. This painting is imbued with a strong spiritual connotation that invites contemplation and meditation.

Color is freed from being subjected to form and matter, thus becoming the very subject of the work. Among the main artists associated with this pictorial movement we remember: Color Field painters drew attention to color existing in its purest form, an entity in and of itself, no longer used for its representative function,

but as a transmissive element of the impression as a primary vehicle for communicating emotions and sensations in the viewer. In Rothko's work, in particular, the color almost seems to vibrate on the canvas and to expand filling and enveloping the eye of the beholder.

The artists associated with Colour Field Painting shared the Action Painting’s interest in new paint techniques and gesture - especially Clifford Still - however, far from being an active gesture, this was absolutely subordinate to the application of color

By juxtaposing and overlapping different colours with each other they investigate how colours interact and the effects produced by their interrelation on the compositional harmony of the work a bit like a musician juxtaposes the notes in a score to create a melody.

Once again, it is important to stress that Abstract Expressionism, more than a movement, is a lose group of individual and distinct artists each with their own absolutely unique pictorial style

however, brought close together and united by the same historical period, by the same influences and some expressive elements characterising their approach to painting. Let's review together what are the key elements of Abstract Expressionism: ANTI-FIGURATIVE AESTHETIC

Abstract Expressionism rejects both figurative and representational forms, such as geometric shapes - unlike Geometric Abstractionism and Suprematism. Colours, lines and shapes are composed together to create an absolutely new image

freed from our visual experience. DIMENSION Very often, paintings by Abstract Expressionists are large sized.

This is not only because the artists did not want to be limited by the constraints of a small canvas in the act of painting but also because there was the intention to immerse the viewer inside the painting. The vast dimension of the work doesn’t allow us to embrace it with a single glance

and the work thus turns into a total space and its contemplation becomes a real, immersive experience. ALL-OVER COMPOSITION

As we have seen in the work of Jackson Pollock’s, Abstract Expressionists often use the surface of the canvas in its entirety, allowing the support to become part of the image.

This element, combined with the large scale of the work and the absence of identifiable figures and subject matter, leads our gaze to move continuously all over the painting, searching in vain for a focal point. It can be argued that there is a sort of mimesis between the contemplative moment - in which the viewers experience the work -

and the creative one, in which the artist moves around the work during the pictorial act. MOVEMENT The artist’s movement and the physical act of painting itself is a fundamental element in gestural painting

and often the dynamic of the artist’s hand or process is highly evident in the completed work, as it is reflected through the marks of the sharp, quick brush strokes or the splashed, dripped paint across the canvas.

EXPRESSION No longer conventional, pre-fabricated and recognisable images, but a new, unprecedented language

aimed at the expression of human emotions through that primary, absolutely universal communicative vehicle, which is color.