Abstract Expressionism vs Color Field Painting
抽象表現主義 / カラーフィールド・ペインティング
Abstract Expressionism comes from Postwar American Art and Color Field Painting from Postwar Abstract Painting. Both are read here as style. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Abstract Expressionism
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On huge canvases, with bodily strokes, drips, stains and broad fields of color, what stays on the surface is the act of painting and strong inner feeling rather than a depicted subject.
Color Field Painting
Large continuous fields, soaked edges and few forms build a space of color that fills the entire surface and asks to be looked at for a long time.
| Abstract Expressionism | Color Field Painting | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1940s–1950s | late 1940s–1960s |
| Family | Postwar American Art | Postwar Abstract Painting |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | Vast canvases / Bodily brushwork / All-over composition / Drips and stains | Vast color fields / Soaked contours / Few forms / Immersive scale |
| Best used for | Key visuals for concerts and theatre where emotional intensity has to arrive first · Book covers where one huge abstract ground carries the title alone | Large walls in museums or places of worship where people stay a long time · Advertising for perfume or spirits where color itself has to carry the mood |
| Type | Keep words to a few and place them clear of the paint | Set type small at the margin so the field stays unbroken |
| Composition | Refuse a center and carry stroke density to every edge | Reduce to two or three forms sized beyond the field of view |
| Material | Thick paint and poured washes on a large support, drips left visible | Thinned paint soaked into cloth so no edge ever hardens |
| Caution | Scattering energetic strokes as decoration skips each artist's method, the postwar politics and the tie between scale and body, and with neither density nor a record of decisions it reads as a dirty backdrop. | Do not settle for a gradient background. Design how area, adjacent color, edge and viewing distance change the feeling, because big color at small scale never envelops and ends as a swatch. |