Abstract Expressionism: Heuristic Rather Than Dogmatic

Abstraction is a concept that promotes evoking inner feelings and emotions, rather than replicating apparent reality. The idea of ​​abstraction has been around since prehistoric times, when humans depicted forms on walls with minimal and simplified sources. This study aims to understand the concept of abstraction through the artistic movement, exploring the various styles and techniques used in Abstract Expressionism. Abstract Expressionism also focuses on figuring out different ways by which abstraction can be incorporated into architecture through space and form. The use of gestures and movement patterns can be seen both in art on canvas and in architecture through spatial elements such as line, colour, texture, shape and form, with the same motivation to create a personal and evocative user experience – A wealth of emotions makes them relevant.

Modernism is a break with the past while seeking new forms of expression. Modernism spawned a period of artistic experimentation.

As an expression of the rationalist approach and the big ideas offered by the industrial age, modern art reflects the way new life and new ideas are manifested in modern society.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially after the First World War, modernism spawned a period of artistic experimentation.

Emotion Suppressed Reality

This approach is typically characterized by presenting the world only from a subjective point of view,

It is completely twisted to be used as an emotional tool to evoke emotion.

Rejection of historical and conservative values, or realistic depictions of the subject, and prosperity

Form (colour, shape, and line), with an emphasis on abstraction.

After the devastation of the Holocaust and the atomic bomb, the artists no longer wanted to paint a realistic version on canvas, but to show their inner anxiety and deep emotions.

It shapes their understanding of painting itself, the struggle between self-expression and subconscious confusion.

Young artists, haunted by the dark side of human beings, anxiously aware of human irrationality and fragility, want to express their concerns with art with a new meaning and substance.

The futuristic experimentation was important because  how abstract art was infused with a sense of romance to explain American industrial civilization.

It arose in New York City in the 1940s as a response to World War II and postwar politics.

An American movement gained international fame for the first time, moving Paris from the centre of the Western art world to New York, USA. 

In the United States, many companies have built a reputation for making and selling well-designed, high-quality, inexpensive furniture made from new materials such as fibreglass and plastic.

Abstraction Changed Art

Consciously endowing materials with the power to carry artistic qualities drive the evolution towards abstraction. With this power, the material makes painting a material term. The free use of painting materials tends to move away from the depiction of real things, as this activity locks in the more expressive use of painting, or at least makes the passage of expression long and difficult.

Painting materials are taking hold, after which any depiction of reality outside of painting will be removed for ambitious artistic creations. Abstract painting has taken root.

Gestures and Sensitivity

Abstract Expressionism is a painting movement in which artists often quickly apply paint to their huge canvases in an effort to express feelings and emotions.

Painting is non-geometric, sometimes smeared with large brushes, which may seem like an accident, but is well planned.

Colours and brushstrokes are bold and confident. Emphasis on spontaneity and improvisation (emphasis on the process).

Roughly drawn recognizable images, and free-form abstractions are eliminated. Heavy, rhythmic and richly modulated colours.

Shallow depth of overlapping form.

Also use 3D objects like rope, dowels and upholstery tacks that create the illusion of overlapping or passing behind the painted form.

Create a spatial tension that competes with the picture. It was named “gesture” because many artists did not use an easel. They put the canvas on the ground and used their whole body to create the painting.

Techniques | Abstract Expressionism

Action Painting

A style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dripped, splashed, or smeared onto the canvas rather than carefully applied.

The reason why this kind of painting is called action painting is that  the painter tries various means of action, creates from different angles, and throws the paint on the canvas with the action to create the canvas.

Painters can focus on the edges or the middle of the canvas as they wish.

Colour Field Painting

A painting that covers the entire canvas with an area of ​​solid colour. It was meant to be seen, so the audience was immersed in the colour.

Jackson Pollock’s Contribution to Abstract Expressionism

Pollock’s paintings do not focus on one part of the canvas but have precious edges and corners, symbols of social democracy that create similar units.

The composition is based on wavy moving lines, covering the entire panel almost evenly, and the aesthetic appearance makes for seemingly random order.

The rhythm, flow and circulation patterns mixed in the wavy line system demonstrate this. Continuous line patterns, slabs of surface or depth of work bring reminders of analysis.

Create panels with amazing depth and move to interior line compositions

For drip painting, Pollock injected paint directly into the canvas through holes in the can. Chaos character. Chaotic, but by no means random. There are no brushes in his paintings.

Painting Of Monet

Paintings that are still too modern for us. But space painting has the strength and bluntness to persevere and grow; to become abstract in space, painting is forced to close some of its most expressive elements (tonal changes, sensual painting)  to emphasize what it has to fake (the illusion of depth).

Drip and Splatter Technique

Jackson Pollock introduces his “Drip Painting,” which represented one of the most original collections of the century and changed the course of American art forever.

Jackson Pollock is best known for his large murals – Large Abstract Expressionism. When Pollock applied paint from all sides of the canvas that was laid on the ground, he dripped, splashed, threw and threw paint from all sides. In his paintings, Pollock claimed to maintain control.

His “drip” method prevented him from creating static works but allowed him to create dynamic ones.

A Post-War Sensibility 

Mid-century modern style is known for its post-World War II practicality, closeness to nature, and a captivating combination of striking tones and textures.

Designers and architects emphasized the functionality, efficiency and accessibility of mid-century modern furniture and architecture.

In the United States, many companies are known for making and selling well-designed, high-quality, inexpensive furniture made from new materials such as fibreglass and plastic.

Sculptors in postwar America began experimenting with biomimetic sculpture, using forms and materials similar to organics to create their abstract works.

Modernism uses new materials and techniques to create sober and elegant designs that can be easily mass-produced. Modernist furniture aims to be affordable, functional and simple, showing the beauty of new materials and simple forms.

New technologies, including laminates and the ability to form and bend materials, have made it possible for designers to explore more organic designs, while rounded shapes appeal to the public both in terms of comfort and modern aesthetic appeal.

The use of new materials such as plywood, fibreglass, steel, aluminium, foam and plastic laminates has influenced furniture design – malleability allows for smooth, rounded edges and contours.

Mid-century furniture ticks all the boxes, and its compact, sleek design works wonders in tight spaces while adding an element of modernist glamour.

Large pieces of furniture are designed to be divided into several parts (or folded flat) to make them easy to move.

The urgent need for affordable housing and furniture spurred a boom in design and production. A new optimism prevailed, and the introduction of commercial jet travel in 1957 encouraged a growing fusion of cultural influences. The world sees a blurring of Eastern and Western aesthetics and technologies, leading to a whole new blend of cultures.

Table and Chairs- Charles Eames (1950) 

(Boom baby) Eames plastic shell chairs and cast aluminium Formica tables can be used in a domestic setting.

There is freedom and flexibility in furniture design because now the plastic they use is a rich three-dimensional or sculptural material.

1954 (Women from decorating their own home with a variety of Eames shell chairs).

Carl Jacobs (1950) It Stacked:

Manufactured by kandya UK for home and institutional use, these plywood enclosures feature open-back cutouts for resilience and stacking capacity.

The post-war led to a change in orientation from wide to narrow but high-rise, and furniture is now also designed to take up minimal space and can sometimes be assembled.

Table Lamp/James Harvey Crate (1950)

Early atomic design. This lamp won third prize in MoMA’s 1950 Lamp Design Competition. The funnel containing the light source can be directed to reflect on a flat metal disc connected by three stainless steel rods with cork balls on top.

A French designer, Hoffer brought spider’s idea for chairs. 

As the earthy tones of the previous era faded, bright colours took their place, while palettes reflected new pop interests. They fold up completely for easy portability and storage. (mid the 1950s).

Sofa/Isamu Noguchi (Late 1940’s)

Dramatically uneven sofa on little blond conical legs but never produced.

Vase/ Fluvio Bianconi (1950)

Freeform freeze in the glass. Famous Italian” hand-blown, no two are exactly alike in shape or decoration.

Emphasis on Practicality

The homeownership boom meant homes were limited in space, so most mid-century modern furniture was compact. Being one with nature is another outstanding feature.

“The office isn’t just an office. It’s a meeting room, a living room, and a library. So the furniture has to be as flexible as the function it performs.”

There are abstract paintings all over the office walls.

Pastel shades are timeless and trendy: teal, burnt orange and olive green play against walnut and teak browns, caramel gold, deep leather and plaid wallpaper.

Importance of Abstract Expressionism

Artists break with accepted conventions in terms of technique and subject matter, and they produce colossal works that reflect their psyche.

The emphasis on dynamic, energetic gestures contrasts with the reflective, cerebral focus on the more open realm of colour. In both cases, the image is mostly abstract. Even when depicting images based on visual reality, Abstract Expressionists favoured highly abstract patterns.

These magnificent realist paintings are clear evidence of the rupture of realist painting; American art found realism too classical and intellectual to absorb.

Neither flat like cubist art, nor truly three-dimensional like futuristic work.

But at the same time, many see the movement as rebellious and unconventional, even nihilistic.

Citation: 

Book

1. Cara Greenberg(1984) .Mid- century MODERN furniture of the 1950s.
2. Ralph Henry Gabriel(1987). Revolution an tradition in modern American art 

Article 

1.  Ken Jacobs.(1991). Towards an abstract Expressionist art. Ken Jacobs Gallery,24-34
2. Journal of history culture and art research
3. Tarih Kultur Ve Sanat (1990). A case study of Pollock’s artwork
4. Brittney. (2018). Who started the drip technique in art during abstract expressionism in the modern period
5. David Smith.(2000). Cubism-abstract expressionism

Image Citation: 

1. Image 1_ One,Number 31, 1950, Jackson Pollock, 1950_ ©Barritt Peter. (1950). One, Number 31, 1950, Jackson Pollock, 1950. [Photograph] 
2. Image 2_ Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1959, oil on watercolor paper, private collection._©Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko. (1957). Mark
3. Rothko, Untitled, 1959, oil on watercolor paper, private collection. [Photograph] 
4. Image 3_ Claude Monet- The Japanese Bridge- Google Art Project_© (No name). (1917). Claude Monet- The Japanese Bridge- Google Art Project. [Photograph] 
5. Image 4_ Willem de Kooning_ ©Women-Ochre. (1955). Willem de Kooning. [Photograph] 
6. Image 5_ Henry Moore: Sculptural Process and Public Identity_© The Henry Moore Foundation. All Rights Reserved. (1938). Henry Moore: Sculptural Process and Public Identity. [Photograph]
7. Image 6_ Eames Plastic Chairs_ ©Vitra (no date) Vitra.com. 
8. Image 7_ Jason Chairs By Carl Jacobs For Kandya, 1950s_ ©Jason chairs by Carl Jacobs for Kandya, 1950s (no date) Vntg.com. 
9. Image 9_ French First Edition Plan Chairs with Spider Web Seat by Hoffer, 1958_© French first edition Plan chairs with spider web seat by Hoffer, 1958, set of 2 (no date) pamono.eu. 
10. Image 10_ Freeform Sofa_© Vitra (no date b) Vitra.com. 
11. Image 11_ Fulvio Bianconi For Venini Pezzato Vase Designed 1951_ ©Fulvio Bianconi for venini pezzato vase designed 1951 (no date) Scottishantiques.com. 
12. Image 12_ Steelcase Mid-century office_© Alm, C. (2009) Interior: Elegant mid-century office design, Ultra Swank.