Abstract Expressionism Essay - 1089 Words

abstract expressionism It was a full 170 years after Americans had their political revolution that they won an aesthetic revolution. American art to get rid of its inhibiting mechanisms- provincialism, over-dependence on European sources, and an indifferent public- and liberate itself into a quality and expressive force equal to, or exceeding that of art produced anywhere within the period. Few would argue that the painting and sculpture that emerged from the so-called New York School in the mid 1940s was the foremost artistic phenomenon of its time and was labeled as the Abstract Expressionist movement. Abstract expressionism was a reaction to social realism, surrealism, and primitive art in the 1940s; this is a turning point in†¦show more content†¦Sacred signs overlaid over unconfined surfaces were appealing because the artist was not restricted by a framing edge. They also admired the scale of cave paintings. They were very big and encouraged their followers to paint big. The most significant impact of primitive art was the cave paintings admirable freedom, which influenced the free, unbound style in which the abstract expressionists painted. The revolt of fascism and realism is freedom, which is articulated in the free form style of the Abstract Expressionist. Americans for generations had sought to achieve their own artistic maturity and had largely failed, either by inadequate assimilation of European models or by Americas own provincialism. The Abstract Expressionist Movement was so influential because it was the first time that American artists were doing something new and different from Europe. American Artists for the first time had an advantage over Europe, which virtually transferred the center of the art world from Paris to New York. Ironically, it was the paralyzing poverty of the Great Depression that gave younger American artists their first advantage. Beginning in 1935, with the Federal Art Project organized under the Works Progress Administration, artists could earn a living as artists and do so free to create in whatever manner they might choose. They could even gravitate to New York, traditionally Americas safe haven for the revolutionary, and there band together as a beleagueredShow MoreRelatedEssay on Abstract Expre ssionism1814 Words   |  8 PagesAbstract Expressionism New needs need new techniques. And the modern artists have found new ways and new means of making their statements ... the modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or of any other past culture. Jackson Pollock Rarely has such a massive transfer of influence has ever touched the world as did in the Paris to New York shift of the 1940s and 1950s. 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