Tachisme

タシスム / 1945–1960 / Style / Postwar Abstract Painting

A European abstraction named for the tache, or stain, which gives the leading role to the chance of a brushmark and a drip. Planned composition is abandoned, and the speed at which paint lands and runs becomes the order of the surface. Within Art Informel this is the name that fixes on the swiftness of the gesture.

Tachisme — Hans Hartung, T46-17, 1946 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0 · © Pedro Ribeiro Simões from Lisboa, Portugal — Hans Hartung, T46-17, 1946 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0 · CC BY 2.0 · © Pedro Ribeiro Simões from Lisboa, Portugal

At a glance

Visual cues

Accumulations of stains and drips
Marks of rapid gesture
Arrangements without a centre
Contrast with reserves of white ground

Best used for

Posters for improvised music or dance that put the speed of the performance on the page
Title pages and identity systems carrying speed through one authentic ink splash

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Dictionary entry

Type: One quiet grotesque, small and stable, set against the moving marks
Composition: Off-centre clusters of gesture surrounded by generous white; no grid, only momentum
Material: Fluid ink and thinned paint that stains, drips and splashes on a white ground
Caution: Avoid retouching or composing the splash after the fact—corrected gestures lose the recorded speed that is the style's entire content.
Further study: The overlap in terminology with Art Informel / Gesture as a record of time / The debate comparing it with calligraphy

Related entries

Art Informel (アンフォルメル)Same Postwar Abstract Painting lineage.Compare Tachisme and Art Informel
Abstract Expressionism (抽象表現主義)Editorially linked for a useful contrast.Compare Tachisme and Abstract Expressionism

Often confused with

Art Informel (アンフォルメル)compare

Cite this entry

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Link: https://indexstyle.org/styles/tachisme
Markdown: [Tachisme — IndexStyle](https://indexstyle.org/styles/tachisme)
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