Abstract Expressionism
抽象表現主義 / 1940s–1950s / Style / Postwar American Art
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.
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At a glance
Visual cues
- Vast canvases
- Bodily brushwork
- All-over composition
- Drips and stains
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
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Dictionary entry
- Type
- Keep words to a few and place them clear of the paint
- Composition
- Refuse a center and carry stroke density to every edge
- Material
- Thick paint and poured washes on a large support, drips left visible
- 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.
- Further study
- Lee Krasner / Jackson Pollock / Norman Lewis / Willem de Kooning
Related entries
- Gutai (具体美術協会)Shared effects: Rebellion / Exhilaration.Compare Abstract Expressionism and Gutai
- Color Field Painting (カラーフィールド・ペインティング)Shared effects: Calm / Exhilaration.Compare Abstract Expressionism and Color Field Painting
Often confused with
More from Postwar American Art
Continue through styles in the same Postwar American Art family, prioritised by shared effects.
- Earthwork / Land Art (アースワーク／ランドアート)Shared effects: Calm / Rebellion / Exhilaration.
- Conceptual Art (コンセプチュアル・アート)Shared effects: Rebellion / Calm.
- Funk Art (ファンク・アート)Shared effects: Rebellion / Exhilaration.
Browse all Postwar American Art entries
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- https://indexstyle.org/styles/abstract-expressionism
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