Abstract Expressionism The Simple Expression of Complex Thought

Making Sense of a World Gone Mad After WWII, artists in New York were eager to express their frustration in a world they perceived to be too much– like the Dadaists after WWI. Barnet Newman, an artist associated with the movement, wrote: – "We felt the moral crisis of a world in shambles, a world destroyed by a great depression and a fierce World War, and it was impossible at that time to paint the kind of paintings that we were doing—flowers, reclining nudes, and people playing the cello."

Influences Although the war was an inspiration and a turning point for these artists, experimentation in style and subject matter had come from teachers who left Germany from the Bauhaus and came to the Northeast. In addition, many were exposed to the Marxist realism of Diego Rivera and the Mexican Muralists.

Carl Jung The collective unconscious Archetypes His philosophies were very influential among the Abstract Expressionists– just like Freud with the Surrealists.

Mark Rothko "If you are only moved by color relationships, you are missing the point. I am interested in expressing the big emotions - tragedy, ecstasy, doom."

Technique my.org/humanities/art- 1010/abstract-exp- nyschool/abstract- expressionism/v/moma -mark-rothko my.org/humanities/art- 1010/abstract-exp- nyschool/abstract- expressionism/v/moma -mark-rothko my.org/humanities/art- 1010/abstract-exp- nyschool/abstract- expressionism/v/moma -painting-technique- rothko my.org/humanities/art- 1010/abstract-exp- nyschool/abstract- expressionism/v/moma -painting-technique- rothko

Jackson Pollock "It doesn't make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement."

That’s not art– it’s CHAOS! Why study Jackson Pollock? Why study Jackson Pollock? Watch “action painting” happen! Watch “action painting” happen!