The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (3 page)

Abstract Expressionism
.

The dominant movement in American painting in the late 1940s and 1950s. It was the first major development in American art to lead rather than follow Europe, and it is often reckoned the most significant art movement anywhere since the Second World War. The energy and excitement it brought to the American art scene helped New York to replace Paris as the world capital of contemporary art, and much of the subsequent history of painting can be written in terms of reactions to it. The phrase ‘Abstract Expressionism’ had originally been used in 1919 to describe certain paintings by
Kandinsky
, but in the context of modern American painting it was first used by the
New Yorker
art critic Robert Coates in 1945; by the end of the decade it had become part of the standard critical vocabulary. The painters embraced by the term worked mainly in New York (hence the term
New York School
) and there were various ties of friendship and loose groupings among them, but they shared a similarity of outlook rather than of style—an outlook characterized by a spirit of revolt against tradition and a demand for spontaneous freedom of expression. The stylistic roots of Abstract Expressionism are complex, but despite its name it owed more to
Surrealism
—with its stress on
automatism
and intuition—than to
Expressionism
. A direct source of inspiration came from the European Surrealists who took refuge in the USA during the Second World War. The most famous Abstract Expressionist is Jackson
Pollock
, whose explosive energy best sums up the movement, but the work of other leading exponents was sometimes neither abstract (the leering
Women
of
de Kooning
) nor expressionist (the serene visions of
Rothko
). Even allowing for these wide differences, however, there are certain qualities that are basic to most Abstract Expressionist painting: the preference for working on a huge scale; the emphasis placed on surface qualities so that the flatness of the canvas is stressed; the adoption of an
all-over
type of treatment, in which the whole area of the picture is regarded as equally important; and the glorification of the act of painting itself (see
ACTION PAINTING
).
Alongside de Kooning, Pollock, and Rothko, the painters who are considered central to Abstract Expressionism include
Gorky
,
Gottlieb
,
Guston
,
Kline
,
Motherwell
,
Newman
, and
Still
. Most of them struggled for recognition early in their careers, but during the 1950s the movement became an enormous critical and financial success. It had passed its peak by 1960, but several of the major figures continued productively after this. By 1960, also, reaction against the emotionalism of the movement was under way, in the shape principally of
Pop art
and
Post-Painterly Abstraction
. Sculptors as well as painters were influenced by Abstract Expressionism, the leading figures including Ibram Lassaw (1913– ), Seymour Lipton (1903–86), and Theodore Roszak (1907–81).

 
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Abstraction-Création
.

A group of abstract painters and sculptors formed in Paris in February 1931, a successor to
Cercle et Carré
. The group was open to artists of all nationalities and the organization was loose, so that at one time its numbers rose to as many as 400. It operated by arranging group exhibitions and by publishing an illustrated annual (1932–6) called
Abstraction-Création: Art non-figuratif
. Within this general principle the association was extremely catholic in its outlook and embraced many kinds of non-figurative art, although the emphasis fell increasingly upon geometrical rather than expressive or
lyrical abstraction
. After
c.
1936 the activities of the association dwindled as some of the leading Constructivists moved from France to England.

 
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académie
.

A French term for a private art school, several of which flourished in Paris in the late 19th and early 20th cents. The term ‘atelier libre’ has also been used to refer to such establishments. Entry to the official École des
Beaux-Arts
was difficult (almost impossible for foreigners, who from 1884 had to take a vicious examination in French) and teaching there was conservative, so private art schools, with their more liberal regimes, were often frequented by progressive young artists. Four of them are particularly well known. The
Académie Carrière
was opened in 1890 by Eugène Carrière (1849–1906), a painter of portraits, religious pictures, and—his speciality—scenes of motherhood. His style was characteristically misty, monochromatic, and vaguely
Symbolist
.
Rodin
was a great admirer of his work. There was no regular teaching at the school, though Carrière visited it once a week. It was here that
Matisse
met
Derain
, thus helping to form the nucleus of the future
Fauves
. The
Académie Julian
was founded in 1873 by Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907), whose work as a painter is now forgotten. The school had no entrance requirements, was open from 8 a.m. to nightfall, and was soon the most popular establishment of its type. Julian opened several branches throughout Paris, one of them for women artists, and by the 1880s the student population was about 600. Although the Académie Julian became famous for the unruly behaviour of its students, it was regarded as a steppingstone to the École des Beaux-Arts (Julian had been astute in engaging teachers from the École as visiting professors). Among the French artists who studied there were
Bonnard
,
Denis
, Matisse , and
Vuillard
. The list of distinguished foreign artists who studied there is very long. The
Académie Ranson
was founded in 1908 by Paul Ranson (1864–1909), who had studied at the Académie Julian. After Ranson's early death, his wife took over as director, and his friends Denis and
Sérusier
were among the teachers. Among later teachers the most important was Roger
Bissière
, whose style of expressive abstraction influenced many young painters in the 1930s; his pupils included
Manessier
. The
Académie Suisse
was founded in about 1850 by a former artists' model called Suisse ‘in an old and sordid building where a well-known dentist pulled teeth at one franc apiece … artists could for a small fee work from the living model without any examinations or tuition’ (John
Rewald
.
The History of Impressionism
).
Courbet
,
Manet
, and several of the
Impressionists
drew at the Académie Suisse, and it was there in 1861 that Camille
Pissarro
first noticed the ‘strange Provençal’ Paul
Cezanne
, whose life drawings were ridiculed by his fellow students.

 
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Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture
, Paris.

See
ACADEMY
.

 
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