Western Painting – The Movement in Western Art – Lyrical Abstraction

History

Lyrical Abstraction refers to the postwar modernist term, often used interchangeably with Art Informal and Abstract Expressionism that grew in Europe, precisely in France, in 1945 and lasted until the end of 1957. In 1946, a French art critic, Charles Estienne , formally coined the term ‘lyrical abstraction’. In America, this Abstraction was a movement described by Larry Aldrich in 1969. The name ‘Tachisme’ was also used to describe this movement.

o European lyrical abstraction: when, after World War II, France was busy resurrecting its image
Devastated by collaboration and occupation, some art lovers decided to restore Paris’s position as the center of art, as it was, until the World War. Putting the plan into action, several exhibitions were held in Paris. George Mathieu’s two “Abstraction Lyrique” exhibitions in Paris in 1947, and when Francis Picabia, sculptor Francis Stahly, Georges Mathieu, Michel Tapié, and Camille Bryen, Wols, Hans Hartung, and Riopelle in 1948, delivered some notable trends on canvas. While George’s works clearly demarcated the gap separating ‘cold’ geometric abstraction from the ‘hot’ organic lyrical abstraction type, Wols’s paintings had the influence of the French Surrealists, such as meticulous and prolific graphic work. Hartung’s paintings focused on hatching, scratching, and brushing, and Hartung’s canvas was full of scratches. Riopelle’s paintings, on the other hand, were free-style, without fixed concepts or ideas.

o American Lyrical Abstraction: Tachisme marked the American landscape during the 1960s and 1970s in New York City, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and later in Toronto and London. From minimalism to abstract expressionism, color field painting, and Tachism, lyrical abstraction featured loose strokes, spontaneous expression, illusionistic space, acrylic staining, process, occasional imagery, and other unique and novel painting techniques. This form of abstraction had to do with the unlimited. expressionism. The Minimalists, Pop Artists, Formalists, and Geometric Abstractionists of the 1960s were the key genre of painters, who switched to Lyrical Abstraction. Experimental, expressive, loose, painterly, painterly, and abstract were the key features of Tachisme.

correlation

Lyrical abstraction resembles abstract expressionism and color field painting, especially in its free use of paints, exteriors, and textures, resulting in similarly brushed, sprayed, stained, poured, splashed, and squeezed colors. Lyrical Abstraction was unique from the other painting styles of the 1940s and 1950s, due to its leaning toward composition and drama. Lyrical abstraction is remarkably identified with compositional randomness, low-key and peaceful compositional drama, and repetition.

Unfortunately, the United States accepted the term tachism quite late. However, in 1989, the late Daniel Robbins, Professor of Art History at Union College, acknowledged the term and emphasized that it should be used as it had historical credibility.

Lyrical Abstractionists and Works: Some of the famous lyrical abstractionists were James Brooks, Helen Frankenthaler (Mountains and Sea – 1952), Albert Bitran (b. 1931), Arshile Gorky, Pat Lipsky (Spiked Red – 1970), Adolph Gottlieb, Robert Motherwell , John Seery (East – 1973), Kenzo Okada, Mark Rothko, Joan Mitchell, Norman Bluhm, John Levee, Ray Parker, Paul Jenkins, Cleve Gray, Jack Bush.