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The Arena of Action Painting
Action Painting is perhaps what most people first picture when they hear “Abstract Expressionism.” The term itself, coined by the critic Harold Rosenberg in 1952, perfectly captures the essence. For these artists, the canvas was not merely a surface to depict something, but an arena within which to act. The act of painting itself – the gesture, the process, the physical engagement with materials – became paramount, intrinsically linked to the final artwork. The finished piece wasn’t just an image; it was a record, a residue of the creative event. Jackson Pollock stands as the quintessential Action Painter. Dispensing with traditional easels and brushes, Pollock laid enormous canvases on the floor of his Long Island studio. He moved around and within them, dripping, pouring, splattering, and flinging household and industrial paints using sticks, trowels, and syringes. This radical technique, often dubbed “drip painting,” resulted in dense, intricate webs of linear energy. There’s no central focus, no traditional composition; instead, his “all-over” paintings envelop the viewer, drawing them into a dynamic field of pure energy and rhythm. Works like “Number 17A” or “Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)” are not pictures *of* something, but events frozen in time.It’s crucial to understand that despite the apparent randomness, Pollock exercised considerable control. His movements were deliberate, choreographed, drawing upon Surrealist ideas of automatism but guided by artistic intuition and experience. The result was not chaos, but a complex, structured energy.Willem de Kooning, another giant of Action Painting, offered a different kind of intensity. While embracing gestural abstraction, de Kooning never fully abandoned the figure. His controversial “Woman” series features ferocious, fragmented female forms emerging from and dissolving into violent slashes and swathes of paint. His brushwork is aggressive, seemingly attacking the canvas, scraping and reapplying paint in a constant struggle between abstraction and representation. The raw energy is palpable, but unlike Pollock’s ethereal webs, de Kooning’s work often feels visceral, fleshy, and psychologically charged. Other key figures associated with this gestural wing include Franz Kline, known for his massive, stark black-and-white compositions. Using broad house-painting brushes, Kline created powerful, architectural structures that seem to slash across the canvas with immense force. Though purely abstract, they evoke urban landscapes, bridges, and raw industrial power. The emphasis remained on the bold, decisive gesture and the dynamic interplay of monumental forms. The core tenets uniting these Action Painters were:
- Emphasis on the physical act of creation.
- Spontaneity and improvisation (though often underpinned by control).
- Large scale, demanding viewer engagement.
- The canvas as a field of energy and psychic drama.
- Exploration of the subconscious through gesture.
The Immersive Worlds of Color Field Painting
Emerging alongside Action Painting, and sometimes practiced by the same artists at different points, was Color Field Painting. If Action Painting emphasized the dramatic *process*, Color Field focused on the *effect* – specifically, the power of vast expanses of relatively flat, unmodulated color to evoke profound emotional and contemplative states. These artists weren’t interested in recording a struggle on canvas; they sought to create an encompassing environment of color that would engulf the viewer, triggering a more direct, almost transcendental experience. Mark Rothko is perhaps the most famous Color Field painter. His signature style features large, soft-edged rectangular shapes of luminous color, seemingly hovering one above the other against a colored ground. Rothko meticulously applied thin washes of paint, layer upon layer, creating subtle vibrations and a sense of inner light. He intended his paintings to be viewed up close in relatively dim light, allowing the viewer to be enveloped by the color zones. He spoke of expressing basic human emotions – tragedy, ecstasy, doom – through the sheer interaction of these colored forms. Titles like “No. 14, 1960” or “Orange and Yellow” give little away, directing the viewer towards a purely visual, emotional encounter. Barnett Newman approached color differently, aiming for what he termed the “sublime.” His canvases often feature huge fields of saturated color, dramatically interrupted by one or more thin vertical stripes he called “zips.” These zips aren’t dividers; Newman saw them as accents that paradoxically emphasize the vastness and unity of the color field they traverse. Works like “Vir Heroicus Sublimis” (Man, Heroic and Sublime) are meant to be experienced directly, placing the viewer within the expanse and prompting a sense of awe, scale, and perhaps even spiritual awareness. The zip acts as a point of human presence within the infinite.Variations on the Field
Clyfford Still developed a unique style within the Color Field umbrella, characterized by jagged, torn-looking patches of thickly applied color. His canvases often feel raw and elemental, like fissures revealing underlying layers of energy. There’s a powerful vertical thrust in many of his works, creating dramatic landscapes of pure abstraction. A slightly later development, strongly linked to Color Field but also bridging towards Action Painting, was pioneered by Helen Frankenthaler. She developed a “soak-stain” technique, thinning oil paint with turpentine so it soaked directly into the raw, unprimed canvas, much like watercolor on paper. This allowed for fluid, lyrical forms and a fusion of color and ground, influencing subsequent artists like Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland.Color Field painters, despite their stylistic differences, shared a common goal. They sought to move beyond gestural drama towards a direct communication through color itself. Their large canvases were intended to fill the viewer’s field of vision, creating an immersive, deeply felt experience rather than an object merely to be observed.
Contrasts and Commonalities
While Action Painting celebrated the dynamic gesture and the artist’s physical presence, Color Field Painting pursued a quieter, more holistic experience through the power of hue and scale. One focused on the *making*, the other on the *being*. Action Painters often used thick impasto, revealing the struggle and energy, while Color Field painters preferred flatter surfaces that allowed the color itself to dominate. Yet, both streams flowed from the same Abstract Expressionist river. Both:- Embraced large-scale canvases that broke with easel painting traditions.
- Prioritized abstraction as the primary means of expression.
- Sought to convey profound emotional or psychic content.
- Rejected traditional European notions of composition, perspective, and finish.
- Championed artistic freedom and individual expression.
