Action Painting
Action painting, also known as gestural abstraction, is a dynamic and expressive painting style that emerged within the abstract expressionism movement in the 1940s. Characterized by spontaneous techniques such as flinging, dripping, and splashing paint, action painting emphasizes the physical act of painting itself rather than traditional compositional structures. Pioneered by American artist Jackson Pollock, this style reflects a break from conventional aesthetics, allowing the artist's gestures and movements to dictate the final outcome of the artwork. Critics like Harold Rosenberg have described action painting as a battle of self-expression, with the canvas serving as an arena for existential exploration.
While primarily associated with the New York school of art, action painting has international roots, with notable contributions from artists like Arshile Gorky and Joan Mitchell. The technique focuses on the spontaneity of creativity, encouraging artists to engage fully in the moment without preconceived ideas or corrections. As a result, the final pieces often embody a sense of unpredictability and fluidity, inviting viewers to experience the artwork in a non-linear fashion. Although action painting is no longer the dominant trend in contemporary art, its influence persists, inspiring a new generation of abstract artists in the 21st century.
Action Painting
Action painting, sometimes also called gestural abstraction, is a gestural painting style adopted by some members of the abstract expressionism movement that emerged in the 1940s. All action painting works show a gestural flow and move away from rational and organized composition. The pioneer of action painting was American painter Jackson Pollock (1912–1956). Because abstract expressionism is the first vanguard movement born in the United States, action painting is considered an inherently American movement. The term was first used by critic Harold Rosenberg in the early 1950s to describe the innovative style. Action painting is a gestural painting, that is, it uses spontaneous techniques such as splashing, dropping, flinging, and dribbling paint in order to achieve an expressive effect. Among other styles, it has strong ties to Dadaism and surrealism, sharing their spontaneity, improvisation, and the emotion and passion involved in pure gestural action.
Brief History
The history of action painting is inseparable from that of abstract expressionism and the New York school, which predominated in the American art scene from the 1940s to the 1960s. The term "action painting" was coined in 1952 by critic Harold Rosenberg in an article for the magazine ArtNews. His article, titled "The American Action Painters," became a seminal contribution to contemporary art history. Rosenberg, an existentialist, deemed the work of new artists such as Pollock, Willem de Kooning (1904–1997), and Franz Kline (1910–1962) as existentialist struggles with self-expression with the canvas as the battle arena. Rosenberg also claimed that the rise of the New York school had effectively displaced Paris as the center of contemporary art.
Created by Jackson Pollock in New York, action painting describes the dynamic and energetic action of painting, the gestures of hand, wrist, arm and even whole body, as the artist flings, splashes, drizzles, pours, drips, and smears paint onto the canvas. Pollock aimed to emphasize the process of painting itself, breaking with tradition by way of innovations, such as: (1) using innovative synthetic paints called alkyd enamels; (2) tacking large unstretched canvases onto the wall or laying them on the floor; (3) using a wide variety of implements for painting, such as syringes and sticks, as well as brushes. Furthermore, Pollock moved around a canvas painting from all sides, so that he could in effect be part of the painting. This technique was known as "all over" painting. Towards the end of his life, however, Pollock had begun to introduce some figurative elements in his painting.
Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock spearheaded the action painting movement; however, there were many other renowned American artists known as action painters, such as Sam Francis (1923–1994), Albert Kotin (1907–1980), Lee Krasner (1908–1984), Philip Guston (1913–1980), Joan Mitchell (1925–1992), and Robert Motherwell (1915–1991). Among international artists, Armenian Arshile Gorky (1904–1948), who fled the Armenian genocide and became established in the United States; Modesto Ciruelos (1908–2002), one of the founders of the artist collective "Grupo Juvenil de Artistas de Acción" (Action Artists Youth Group) in postwar Spain; Esteban Vicente (1903–2001) and José Guerrero (1914–1991), also from Spain; and Polish-born American artist Jack Tworkov (1900–1982), among many others, who became prominent action painters.
Although most of these artists had ties to the New York City art school, many engaged in other styles beyond pure action painting.
Overview
From a theoretical point of view, the concept of action painting aims to free subconscious impulses by way of a quick, often playful, chromatic action and gestures. Painters engage completely in the moment, as they participate in pure, spontaneous creativity. Action painting dispenses with any traditional aesthetics in relation to form, composition, color, line and so on, because it considers that such preconfigured or calculated elements that would interfere with the pure, and truthful, creation of the piece. In action painting as in action writing, there is no schema or plan and also, no corrections allowed. Nothing is considered a mistake. Both automatic writing and painting hark back to surrealism and its reliance on the automatic and impulsive action dictated by the subconscious mind. Some art scholars have also cited the advent of existentialism and psychoanalysis as theoretical influences, and the tensions inherent in the nuclear era and Cold War as historical contexts. These artists, in that view, rejected the objectivity, the rational, ideological, and organizational imperatives of postwar America.
From a technical point of view, the action consists of spreading paint over the surface of a canvas—preferably a large canvas—in an energetic and impulsive manner. That is, the work is created without any preconceived ideas or schemas, so that the canvas is a space for action and pure expression of subliminal impulses, far from any objective representation of reality. The final result is unexpected and depends, then, upon the painter’s physical movements in relation to the canvas. In order to achieve this effect, the author drops color onto the canvas in a spontaneous—and even naïve—way, so that it creates an abstract form. While some artists finished a canvas in a matter of minutes, others took a long time and kept returning to work on it, even as they disregarded any depiction of a figurative or real form.
The specific elements of action painting, then, include a complete break from any real referent or mimesis, that is, it rejects mimicry or close representations. It also includes the rejection of conventional aesthetics; the free expression of the unconscious; spontaneity; a lack of specific points of emphasis on the composition; and a focus on bi-dimensionality (that is, rather than creating a tri-dimensional view, abstract expressionism creates flat surfaces). Action painting privileges the accidental and random; the act or process of painting over the content; and gestural expressions and dynamic movement. Because the focus does not settle on a specific point on the canvas, action painting invites the viewer’s gaze to roam continuously across—and even beyond—the canvas. The lack of tri-dimensional perspective follows an ideology of truth revealed, absent of visual illusions, and offers a simple "what you see is what you get" experience.
Although no longer the dominant style in the US art scene, elements of action painting continues to influence many abstract painters. Among contemporary artists who use elements of abstraction and action painting as their medium of expression in the twenty-first century are Yanni Ippoliti and Brad Bannister.
Bibliography
"Action Painting." Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2015. Web. 15 July 2015.
"Action Painting." Visual Arts Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia of Art Education. 2015. Web. 15 July 2015.
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