Your Daily Art

Tag: Abstract Expressionism

  • Variations on a Theme

    Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
    Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

    White Center, 1950 by Mark Rothko.

    A member of the New York School that emerged in the mid 20th century, Mark Rothko has come to be regarded as one of America’s greatest artists. He had his first solo exhibition in 1961.

  • Provenance Not The Only Thing Unclear

    Number 1, 1950 by Jackson Pollock.

    There is a lot of controversy surrounding a recent collection of Jackson Pollock’s work. Read more about the paintings to be attributed to him. Provenance

  • Flag

    Flag, 1954-55 by Jasper Johns, The Museum of Modern Art, New York /VAGA.

    Johns representative artwork was a contrast to the work of the Abstract Expressionists before him. His re-worked images of everyday objects led the way for Pop Art.

  • Breaking it Down

    Composition 8, 1914 by Piet Mondrian, The Guggenheim Museum, NYC.

    This is Mondrian’s interpretation of a tree after seeing the cubist work of Braque and Picasso. He eventually took it to an even more abstract level.

    Piet Mondrian  Composition C (No.III) with Red, Yellow and Blue  © 2007 Mondrian/Holtzman Trust c/o HCR International, Warrenton, VA
    Piet Mondrian  Composition C (No.III) with Red, Yellow and Blue  © 2007 Mondrian/Holtzman Trust c/o HCR International, Warrenton, VA

  • Horizon

    Surrealist Landscape1990 – 1996 by George Morrison, The Minneapolis Institute of Art.

    Morrison was born a Chippewa Native American who was then trained in the European/American style at the Art Students League in New York in the 1940’s. The same place that turned out Jackson Pollock and many other Abstract Expressionists. His work shows these influences with a reverence for nature combined with a free-form style.

  • Object as Communication

    Suprematism, 1915 by Kasimir Malevich, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

    Malevich is the Father of the Suprematist movement which led to Abstraction. He considered his ultimate goal to be communication through “non-object” representation, culminating in a final “white on white” painting. He considered the conveying the feeling of a work more important than portraying an object. After the Russian revolution in 1917, he became a teacher and was quite influential on the Bauhaus artists, architects, and designers.

  • In Defense of Art History

    Art Connoisseur by Norman Rockwell, 1962.
    I do not normally use this blog to editorialize, but I was listening to the radio yesterday and they played a sound bite from a speech President Obama was making in Wisconsin in defense of vocational training and I will say I agree with what he was saying, that there is no shame and often wage benefits, to being trained in a trade however, he chose the perpetually easy target of art history as an example of a college pursuit gone wrong (as Click and Clack humorously and routinely point out on Car Talk).
     
    Here is the quote according to the Washington Post:
        
          “A lot of young people no longer see the trades and skilled
    manufacturing as a viable career, but I promise you, folks can make a
    lot more potentially with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they
    might with an art history degree.” According to the Washington Post, President Obama then chuckled and attempted to put out the fire he had accidentally started by saying “Nothing wrong with art history degree, I love art history. I
    don’t want to get a bunch of emails from everybody. I’m just saying,
    you can make a really good living and have a great career without
    getting a four-year college education, as long as you get the skills and
    training that you need.”
     
    I thought oh great, one more insult to add to the pile, way to grab for the low hanging fruit Mr. President, but it points out a larger and and growing disdain in our society for the libral arts/ humanities in education. With all the promotion of the STEM degrees the traditional libral arts have taken a real hit in the last ten years or so. What used to be considered a fine, well-rounded background for almost any pursuit, has become the butt of jokes and is pointed to as an education squandered.

    From my perspective, without the studies of the humanities our lives are less rich, they lack an understanding of past and richness that only an appreciation of the arts can bring. People may argue that you can pursue these avenues of enrichment on your own, outside of how you earn your money, but without teachers in these areas, your pursuit will only take you so far. Without someone to explain Abstract Expressionism to you, you might likely dismiss it as so many “globs of paint” and miss the importance of the freedom the movement represented and how by throwing the canvas on the ground and tossing the paint onto it, Jackson Pollock took art to a place without boundaries and represented the potential of a nation emerging from the dust of a hard-fought world war, as the new global super power. Art, music, literature, poetry are the mirror that reflects our world back to us, they capture and see things that may not be clear at the time, but upon further study enrich our understanding of ourselves and our world. 

    When I pursued my studies in the areas of literature and art, I knew I was not choosing a path to wealth or fame, but I expected to work in a museum or teach for a wage that would allow me to live modestly, but comfortably and reap my rewards though proximity to beautiful art, or through introducing students to the world of art. As I struggle to find a job (while the adjunct teaching opportunities dry-up and pay far less than a living wage [a rant for another place and time]) I get what Obama is saying, but I am sad for what we lose as a society when we devalue the humanities and look down on those who see its value as more than a guaranteed income bracket.

  • The Road Less Travelled


    Adolph Gottlieb was one of the founders of the Abstract Expressionist movement. His work went from figural portraits in the 20’s and 30’s, to large amalgamations of images that resemble collages in the 40’s, to stark divided canvases in the 50’s and 60’s. These later works are the ones he is best known for, the ones that require the viewer to study the painting and think about what is not represented, as Gottlieb himself put it,”…the very nature of abstract thought is to reduce the complexity of all
    of life and to bring it down to something very simple which embodies all
    this complexity”(from an interview of Gottlieb by Martin Friedman, 1962).

    That is part of the challenge of Abstract Expressionism, it begs the viewer to invest in the work with their own thoughts and interpretations, and for this reason, many people are put-off by it. Some people would rather have the art do the work and entertain them, or clearly reflect the skill of the artist, and therefore abstract works, which seek to say a lot with very little, leave them wanting more.

    Apaquogue is named for a road in East Hampton where the artist had a home.