Action Painting
アクション・ペインティング / late 1940s–1960s / Style / Postwar American Art
An abstract-painting style that treats the surface as a record of the body's passage rather than a container for a predetermined image. Drips, throws, scrapes, broad strokes, and repainting preserve speed, weight, pause, and sequence.
Drips, splashes, and runs retaining gravity / Long strokes that reveal the reach of an arm or body / Layers, scraping, and repainting left visible / Density and open intervals distributed without a central figure
Dictionary entry
- Best used for
- Making bodily speed and hesitation visible as traces rather than finished geometry · Building an abstract stage, motion, or campaign field around one physical gesture
- Type
- Add small type after painting; do not substitute a brush-script font for physical motion.
- Composition
- Work on a floor or large wall without fixing the center first, alternating the body's reach with intervals of rest.
- Material
- Use paints of different viscosities, broad brushes, sticks, and pouring tools; include drying time and gravity in the process.
- Caution
- A uniform splatter brush produces background texture without bodily sequence or weight. Protect the room and people, and verify ventilation and material safety.
- Further study
- Harold Rosenberg and the action-painting label / Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline and Joan Mitchell / gesture, gravity and the painted event
Related entries
- Abstract Expressionism (抽象表現主義)Same Postwar American Art lineage.Compare Action Painting and Abstract Expressionism
- Color Field Painting (カラーフィールド・ペインティング)Shared effects: Exhilaration.Compare Action Painting and Color Field Painting
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: Rebellion / Exhilaration.
- Funk Art (ファンク・アート)Shared effects: Rebellion / Exhilaration.
- Pictures Generation (ピクチャーズ・ジェネレーション)Shared effects: Rebellion / Exhilaration.
Browse all Postwar American Art entries
Cite this entry
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- Link
- https://indexstyle.org/styles/action-painting
- Markdown
- [Action Painting — IndexStyle](https://indexstyle.org/styles/action-painting)
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- <a href="https://indexstyle.org/styles/action-painting">Action Painting — IndexStyle</a>