Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depression and Mexican muralists. The term was first applied to American art in 1946 by the art critic Robert Coates. Key figures in the New York School, which was
"When I am in my painting, I am not aware of what Im doing. It is only after a short of get acquainted period that I see what I have been about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well.."
"Jackson has broken the ice for us."
"The texture of experience is prior to everything else."
"The progression of a painters work, as it travels in time from point to point, will be toward clarity: toward the elimination of all obstacles between the painter and the idea, and between the idea and the observer. As examples of such obstacles, I give (among others) memory, history or geometry, which are swamps of generalization from which one might pull out parodies of ideas (which are ghosts) but never an idea in itself. To achieve this clarity is, inevitably, to be understood."
"It is disastrous to name ourselves."
"I am always in the picture somewhere. The amount of space I use I am always in, I seem to move around in it. And there seems to be a time when I lose sight of what I wanted to do, and then I am out of it. If the picture has a countenance I keep it. If it hasnt, I throw it away."
"Painting is aesthetic enjoyment; I want to be a poet. As an artist I must conform to my nature. My nature has a lyrical as well as a dramatic disposition. Not one day is the same. One day I feel wonderful to work and I feel an expression, which shows in the work. Only with a very clear mind on a clear day I can paint without interruptions and without food because my disposition is like that. My work should reflect my moods and the greatest enjoyment I had when I did the work."
"Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didnt have any beginning or any end. He didnt mean it as a compliment, but it was. It was a fine compliment. Only he didnt know it."
"We are getting mixed up with the French tradition. In talking about the necessity to finish a thing, we then said American painters finish a thing that looks unfinished, and the French, they finish it. I have seen Henri Matisses that were more unfinished and yet more finished than any American painters. Matisse was obviously in a terrific emotion at the time and he was more unfinished than finished."
"The thing that interests me is that today painters do not have to go to a subject-matter outside themselves. Modern painters work in a different way. They work from within. [1951, radio interview]"
"The eye seems to be responding to something living."
"It came into existence because I had to paint it. Any attempt on my part to say something about it, to attempt explanation of the inexplicable, could only destroy it."
