One of the modules that I studied while I was abroad was ‘American Art’. I found this class very interesting as it was something I would not have studied in the University of Limerick. Throughout this module we studied the history of art in America and the progression of the work created. A form of art that stood out for me was ‘Abstract Expressionism’.
This type of art became popular in America around the late 1930’s early 1940’s. Abstract expressionism aims to please the viewer by allowing them to find their own meaning of the Painting. The art produced did not follow any strict rules of painting, and they often consisted of distorted shapes and strange colouring.
One of the artists who stood out for me during my studies was Jackson Pollock. Pollock was known to be an aggressive and troubled man who also was an alcoholic. His style was unique and his approach to his work was to let the painting paint itself. He favoured a technique called ‘Dripping’ which simply consisted of him dipping a paint brush over the canvas and allowing the paint to fall, creating his work. This style also seems to reflect him as a person as he was very careless and distracted.
He was determined to create art from the ‘unconscious’ to represent the surreal and the sublime. In order to do so he felt that he should never premeditate his work, which is why the ‘dripping’ technique was favoured by him. The point of this was to allow the view
to become lost in the painting and create a meaning that is personal and intimate.
Abreact expressionism was an intriguing form of art to study, especially Jackson Pollock and his work that attempts to represent the sublime very interesting as I have read books in which they also try to create an idea of this and it was nice to see it from the platform of art, instead of literature.
http://www.jackson-pollock.org/number-one.jsp
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