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Lyrical abstraction arose from either of two related but distincttrends inPost-warModernist painting:
A second definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related toAbstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s. Many well known abstract expressionist painters such asArshile Gorky seen in context have been characterized as doing a type of painting described as lyrical abstraction.[4][5][6]
The original common use refers to the tendency attributed to paintings in Europe during the post-1945 period and as a way of describing several artists (mostly in France) with painters likeWols,Gérard Schneider andHans Hartung from Germany orGeorges Mathieu, etc., whose works related to characteristics of contemporary American abstract expressionism. At the time (late 1940s),Paul Jenkins,Norman Bluhm,Sam Francis,Jules Olitski,Joan Mitchell,Ellsworth Kelly, and numerous other American artists were, as well, living and working in Paris and other European cities. With the exception of Kelly, all of those artists developed their versions of painterly abstraction that has been characterized at times as lyrical abstraction,tachisme,color field,Nuagisme andabstract expressionism.
Theart movementAbstraction lyrique was born inParis after the war. At that time, the artistic life in Paris, which had been devastated by theOccupation andCollaboration, resumed with numerous artists exhibited again as soon as the Liberation of Paris in mid-1944. According to the new abstraction forms that characterised some artists, the movement was named by theart critic, Jean José Marchand, and the painter, Georges Mathieu, in 1947. Some art critics also looked at this movement as an attempt to restore the image of artistic Paris, which had held the rank of capital of the arts until the war. Lyrical abstraction also represented a competition between theSchool of Paris and the newNew York School ofAbstract Expressionism painting represented above all since 1946 byJackson Pollock, thenWillem de Kooning orMark Rothko, which were also promoted by the American authorities from the early 1950s.
Lyrical abstraction was opposed not only to theCubist andSurrealist movements that preceded it, but also togeometric abstraction (or "cold abstraction"). Lyrical abstraction was, in some ways, the first to apply the lessons ofWassily Kandinsky, considered one of the fathers of abstraction. For the artists, lyrical abstraction represented an opening to personal expression.
Finally, in the late 1960s (partially as a response tominimal art, and the dogmatic interpretations by some toGreenbergian andJuddianformalism), many painters re-introduced painterly options into their works and the Whitney Museum and several other museums and institutions at the time formally named and identified the movement and uncompromising return to painterly abstraction as 'lyrical abstraction'.
Just afterWorld War II, many artists old and young were back in Paris where they worked and exhibited:Nicolas de Staël,Serge Poliakoff,André Lanskoy and Zaks from Russia;Hans Hartung andWols from Germany;Árpád Szenes,Endre Rozsda andSimon Hantaï from Hungary;Alexandre Istrati from Romania;Jean-Paul Riopelle from Canada;Vieira da Silva from Portugal;Gérard Ernest Schneider from Switzerland; Feito from Spain;Bram van Velde from the Netherlands;Albert Bitran from Turkey;Zao Wou-Ki from China; Sugai from Japan;Sam Francis, John Franklin Koenig, Jack Youngerman andPaul Jenkins from the U.S.A andYehezkel Streichman fromIsrael.
All these artists and many others were at that time among the "Lyrical Abstractionists" with the French:Pierre Soulages,Jean-Michel Coulon,Jean René Bazaine,Jean Le Moal,Gustave Singier,Alfred Manessier,Roger Bissière,Pierre Tal-Coat,Jean Messagier,Jean Miotte, and others.
Lyrical Abstraction was opposed not only to "l'Ecole de Paris" remains of pre-war style but toCubist andSurrealist movements that had preceded it, and also togeometric abstraction (or "Cold Abstraction"). For the artists in France, Lyrical Abstraction represented an opening to personal expression. InBelgium,Louis Van Lint figured a remarkable example of an artist who, after a short period of geometric abstraction, has moved to a lyrical abstraction in which he excelled.
Many exhibitions were held in Paris for example in the galleries Arnaud, Drouin, Jeanne Bucher,Louis Carré, Galerie de France, and every year at the "Salon des Réalités Nouvelles" and "Salon de Mai" where the paintings of all these artists could be seen. At the Drouin gallery one could see Jean Le Moal,Gustave Singier,Alfred Manessier, Roger Bissière,Wols and others. A wind blew over the capital whenGeorges Mathieu decided to hold two exhibitions:L'Imaginaire in 1947 at thePalais du Luxembourg which he would have prefer to callabstraction lyrique to impose the name and thenHWPSMTB with (Hans Hartung,Wols,Francis Picabia, François Stahly sculptor, Georges Mathieu,Michel Tapié, and Camille Bryen) in 1948.
In March 1951 was held the larger exhibitionVéhémences confrontées in the gallery Nina Dausset where for the first time were presented side to side French and American abstract artists. It was organised by the criticMichel Tapié, whose role in the defense of this movement was of the highest importance. With these events, he declared that « the lyrical abstraction is born ».
It was, however, a fairly short reign (late 1957), which was quickly supplanted by theNew Realism ofPierre Restany andYves Klein.
Starting around 1970, this movement has been revived by a new generation of artists born during or immediately after the Second World War. Some of its key promoters include Paul Kallos, Georges Romathier, Michelle Desterac, andThibaut de Reimpré.
An exhibition entitled "The Lyrical Flight, Paris 1945–1956" (L'Envolée Lyrique, Paris 1945–1956), bringing together the works of 60 painters, was presented in Paris at the Musée du Luxembourg from April to August 2006 and included the most prominent painters of the movement:Georges Mathieu,Pierre Soulages,Gérard Schneider,Zao Wou-Ki,Albert Bitran,Serge Poliakoff.[7]
American Lyrical Abstraction is anart movement[14] that emerged inNew York City,Los Angeles,Washington, DC, and thenToronto andLondon during the 1960s–1970s. Characterized by intuitive and loose paint handling, spontaneous expression, illusionist space, acrylic staining, process, occasional imagery, and other painterly and newer technological techniques.[15] Lyrical Abstraction led the way away fromminimalism in painting and toward a new freerexpressionism.[16] Painters who directly reacted against the predominatingFormalist,Minimalist, andPop Art andgeometric abstraction styles of the 1960s, turned to new, experimental, loose, painterly, expressive, pictorial and abstract painting styles. Many of them had been Minimalists, working with various monochromatic, geometric styles, and whose paintings publicly evolved into new abstract painterly motifs. American Lyrical Abstraction is related in spirit toAbstract Expressionism,Color Field painting andEuropeanTachisme of the 1940s and 1950s as well.Tachisme refers to the French style of abstract painting current in the 1945–1960 period. Very close toArt Informel, it presents the European equivalent toAbstract Expressionism.
TheSheldon Museum of Art held an exhibition from 1 June until 29 August 1993 entitledLyrical Abstraction: Color and Mood. Some of the participants includedDan Christensen,Walter Darby Bannard,Ronald Davis,Helen Frankenthaler,Sam Francis,Cleve Gray,Ronnie Landfield,Morris Louis,Jules Olitski,Robert Natkin, William Pettet,Mark Rothko, Lawrence Stafford,Peter Young and several other painters. At the time the museum issued a statement the read in part:
As a movement, Lyrical Abstraction extended the post-warModernist aesthetic and provided a new dimension within the abstract tradition which was clearly indebted toJackson Pollock's "dripped painting" andMark Rothko's stained, color forms. This movement was born out of a desire to create a direct physical and sensory experience of painting through their monumentality and emphasis on color – forcing the viewer to "read" paintings literally as things.[17]
During 2009 theBoca Raton Museum of Art in Florida hosted an exhibition entitledExpanding Boundaries: Lyrical Abstraction Selections from the Permanent Collection
At the time the museum issued a statement that said in part:
Lyrical Abstraction arose in the 1960s and 70s, following the challenge of Minimalism and Conceptual art. Many artists began moving away from geometric, hard-edge, and minimal styles, toward more lyrical, sensuous, romantic abstractions worked in a loose gestural style. These "lyrical abstractionists" sought to expand the boundaries of abstract painting, and to revive and reinvigorate a painterly 'tradition' in American art. At the same time, these artists sought to reinstate the primacy of line and color as formal elements in works composed according to aesthetic principles – rather than as the visual representation of sociopolitical realities or philosophical theories.
Characterized by intuitive and loose paint handling, spontaneous expression, illusionist space, acrylic staining, process, occasional imagery, and other painterly techniques, the abstract works included in this exhibition sing with rich fluid color and quiet energy. Works by the following artists associated with Lyrical Abstraction will be included:Natvar Bhavsar,Stanley Boxer, Lamar Briggs,Dan Christensen,David Diao,Friedel Dzubas,Sam Francis, Dorothy Gillespie,Cleve Gray,Paul Jenkins,Ronnie Landfield,Pat Lipsky,Joan Mitchell,Robert Natkin,Jules Olitski,Larry Poons, Garry Rich,John Seery, Jeff Way andLarry Zox.[11]
Lyrical Abstraction, an exhibition in theWhitney Museum of American Art, May 25–July 6, 1971 was described by John I. H. Baur, curator of theWhitney Museum of American Art:[18]
To be given an entire exhibition surveying a current trend in American art at a single blow is an experience unusual to the verge of the bizarre ... Mr. Aldrich defines the trend of Lyrical Abstraction and explains how he came to acquire the works ...
Lyrical Abstraction was the title of a circulating exhibition which commenced at theAldrich Contemporary Art Museum,Ridgefield,Connecticut from April 5 through June 7, 1970,[19] and ended at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, May 25 through July 6, 1971.[20] Lyrical Abstraction is a term that was used by Larry Aldrich (the founder of theAldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield Connecticut) in 1969 to describe what Aldrich said he saw in the studios of many artists at that time.[2][21] Mr. Aldrich, a successful designer and art collector, defined the trend of Lyrical Abstraction and explained how he came to acquire the works.[22] In his "Statement of the Exhibition" he wrote,
Early last season, it became apparent that in painting there was a movement away from the geometric, hard-edge, and minimal, toward more lyrical, sensuous, romantic abstractions in colors which were softer and more vibrant ... The artist's touch is always visible in this type of painting, even when the paintings are done with spray guns, sponges or other objects ... As I researched this lyrical trend, I found many young artists whose paintings appealed to me so much that I was impelled to acquire many of them. The majority of the paintings in theLyrical Abstraction exhibition were created in 1969 and all are a part of my collection now.
Larry Aldrich donated the paintings from the exhibition to the Whitney Museum of American Art.[23]
For many years the term lyrical abstraction was a pejorative, which adversely affected those artists whose works were associated with that name. In 1989,Union College art history professorDaniel Robbins observed that lyrical abstraction was the term used in the late 1960s to describe the return to painterly expressivity by painters all over the country and "consequently", Robbins said, "the term should be used today because it has historical credibility"[24]
The following artists participated in the exhibitionLyrical Abstraction.[25][26]
Lyrical Abstraction along with theFluxus movement andPostminimalism (a term first coined byRobert Pincus-Witten in the pages ofArtforum in 1969)[34] sought to expand the boundaries of abstract painting and Minimalism by focusing on process, new materials and new ways of expression.Postminimalism often incorporating industrial materials, raw materials, fabrications, found objects, installation, serial repetition, and often with references toDada andSurrealism is best exemplified in the sculptures ofEva Hesse.[34] Lyrical Abstraction,Conceptual Art,Postminimalism,Earth Art,Video,Performance art,Installation art, along with the continuation ofFluxus,Abstract Expressionism,Color FieldPainting,Hard-edge painting,Minimal Art,Op art,Pop Art,Photorealism andNew Realism extended the boundaries ofContemporary Art in the mid-1960s through the 1970s.[35] Lyrical Abstraction is a type of freewheeling abstract painting that emerged in the mid-1960s when abstract painters returned to various forms of painterly, pictorial, expressionism with a focus on process, gestalt and repetitive compositional strategies in general. Characterized by an overall gestalt, consistent surface tension, sometimes even the hiding of brushstrokes, and an overt avoidance of relational composition. It developed as didPostminimalism as an alternative to strictFormalist andMinimalist doctrine.
Lyrical Abstraction shares similarities withColor FieldPainting andAbstract Expressionism especially in the freewheeling usage of paint – texture and surface, an example is illustrated by the painting byRonnie Landfield entitledFor William Blake. Direct drawing, calligraphic use of line, the effects of brushed, splattered, stained, squeegeed, poured, and splashed paint superficially resemble the effects seen inAbstract Expressionism andColor FieldPainting. However the styles are markedly different. Setting it apart fromAbstract Expressionism andAction Painting of the 1940s and 1950s is the approach to composition and drama. As seen inAction Painting there is an emphasis on brushstrokes, high compositional drama, dynamic compositional tension. While in Lyrical Abstraction there is a sense of compositional randomness, all over composition, low key and relaxed compositional drama and an emphasis on process, repetition, and an all over sensibility. The differences withColor FieldPainting are more subtle today because many of the Color Field painters likeHelen Frankenthaler,Jules Olitski,Sam Francis, andJack Bush[36] with the exceptions ofMorris Louis,Ellsworth Kelly, Paul Feeley, Thomas Downing, andGene Davis evolved into Lyrical Abstractionists. Lyrical Abstraction shares with bothAbstract Expressionism andColor Field Painting a sense of spontaneous and immediate sensual expression, consequently distinctions between specific artists and their styles become blurred, and seemingly interchangeable as they evolve.
By the mid-1950s, Richard Diebenkorn abandonedabstract expressionism and along withDavid Park,Elmer Bischoff and several others formed theBay Area Figurative School with a return to Figurative painting. During the period between the fall 1964 and the spring of 1965 Diebenkorn traveled throughout Europe, he was granted a cultural visa to visit and view Henri Matisse paintings in important Soviet museums. He traveled to the then Soviet Union to studyHenri Matisse paintings in Russian museums that were rarely seen outside of Russia. When he returned to painting in the Bay Area in mid-1965 his resulting works summed up all that he had learned from his more than a decade as a leading figurative painter.[37] When in 1967 he returned to abstraction his works were parallel to movements like theColor Field movement and Lyrical Abstraction.[38]
In the 1960s, English painterJohn Hoyland'sColor field paintings were characterised by simple rectangular shapes, high-key color and a flat picture surface. In the 1970s his paintings became more textured.[39] During the 1960s and 1970s, he showed his paintings inNew York City with the Robert Elkon Gallery and theAndré Emmerich Gallery. His paintings were closely aligned withPost-Painterly Abstraction, Color Field painting and Lyrical Abstraction.[28]
Abstract Expressionism precededColor Field painting, Lyrical Abstraction,Fluxus,Pop Art,Minimalism,Postminimalism, and the other movements of the 1960s and 1970s and it influenced the later movements that evolved. The interrelationship of/and between distinct but related styles resulted in influence that worked both ways between artists young and old, and vice versa. During the mid-1960s in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere artists often crossed the lines between definitions and art styles. During that period – the mid-1960s through the 1970s advanced American art and contemporary art in general was at a crossroad, shattering in several directions. During the 1970s political movements and revolutionary changes in communication made these American styles international; as the art world itself became more and more international. American Lyrical Abstraction'sEuropean counterpartNeo-expressionism came to dominate the 1980s, and also developed as a response to AmericanPop Art andMinimalism and borrows heavily from AmericanAbstract Expressionism.
This is a list of artists, whose work or a period or significant aspects of it, has been seen as lyrical abstraction, including those before the identification of the term or tendency in America in the 1960s.
{{cite journal}}:|last1= has generic name (help);Cite journal requires|journal= (help)| Geometric abstraction | |
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