A good Abstract Expressionist painting is a discipline of its own.  It employs all the rules and guidelines of all other forms of painting:  composition, balance, line, contrast, cool against warm, dark against light, and form.  In fact, the rules are even more important because there is no object to distract from the composite piece.  Although I teach my students that rules were meant to be broken, they must be broken carefully and with well-thought out intent.  Art comes from within the artist and objectifies the artist's passions and emotional depth. In the process, the artist's style is created and, thus, his or her paint application becomes his or her "signature."

 

Abstract Expresionism was born in the early 1950's in and around New York City.  Weary from the war and hungry for creative freedom, a group of Americans and European ex-patriots began the art revolution that became the first, and to date, the only genuinely American art form. Those art revolutionaries threw out the old ways and drastically recreated the new, personal, emotionally-charged works that became American.

 

Canvases were museum size and had to be worked on in abandoned warehouses and unheated lofts.  Paint was often mixed with sand or anything they thought of at the moment.  Jackson Pollock's famous drip paintings are known to have cigarette butts in them.  The paint was applied with hardware store tools and splattered, dipped or tossed.  The common ingredient was the passion each artist had to openly express himself.  Painting identifiable objects such as a landscape, still life or portrait was no longer the primary intent of their work.

 

Even though it's been over sixty years since the first renegade artists began shocking the art world with their bold paintings, the imprint on the art world throughout the world is evident.  The Abstract Expressionist Movement has encouraged nearly every other technique to loosen up and allow the artist's feelings to come through into their work.  Their belief was, and continues to be that, if you want a picture of a flower or a pretty landscape to hang on the wall, take a photograph.  But if you want to feel what the artist wants to express, one that touches your own inner passions and goes deeper than the surface of technique, consider an Abstract Expressionist piece.