Abstract Expressionist Art: A Truly American Movement

Abstract expressionism is a term that describes an artistic movement that developed in New York City in the 1940s and 1950s. The term itself actually encompasses a wide array of artistic styles that share a common characteristic: the conveyance of energy, emotion, and power. One of the styles within the abstract expressionist movement that best conveys this that of Action painting. Action painting is a style in which the paint is dripped or splattered on to the canvas. Other types of styles such as Color-field painting are also included under the rubric of abstract expressionism. Some of the most famous abstract expressionists included the likes of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooking, and Mark Rothko.

Although the movement originated in the 1940s, it began to gain public acclaim after an exhibit in 1951 in New York's Museum of Modern Art. After gaining recognition the movement gained further recognition in the late 1950s when it was exhibited in Europe. The movement was largely influential in helping to move the focus of the artistic world from Paris to New York thereafter. Because of its origination, the movement is sometimes referred to as the New York School.

The forerunner to the abstract expressionist movement was Surrealism. Surrealism was a movement which originated in the Dada movement which was itself a reaction to World War I. Among the Surrealist artists, Salvador Dali and Max Ernst are two of the most well-known. It was the timeless nature conveyed in Surrealist art which carried over into abstract expressionism. Dali's The Persistence of Memory is one of the more famous representations of this concept. Proponents of the abstract expressionist style declared in 1943 that "only that subject matter is valid which is tragic and timeless." (Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, eds., "Abstract Expressionism" in The Readers Companion to American History, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991). Further influences on abstract expressionism include cubism, the Bauhaus School, and German Expressionism. In the truest sense of the term it is an "eclectic" movement that incorporates the elements of various styles.

As a movement, the New York School continued to exert influence on subsequent artistic styles. The influence was primarily seen more in terms of inspiration than that of style as the artistic community as a whole continued to splinter off in many different directions as it had done since the 19th century and the rise of impressionism. In the end, "Abstract expressionism has an image of being rebellious, anarchic, highly idiosyncratic and, some feel, rather nihilistic. In practice, the term is applied to any number of artists working (mostly) in New York who had quite different styles, and even applied to work which is not especially abstract nor expressionist." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_expressionism)

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_expressionism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealism
Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, eds., "Abstract Expressionism" in The Readers Companion to American History, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991