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otr Con*ear.porar^4 Arr1 ,1 Kns*ir,rt-S;il'.a I U, oF Ca.lifavia, prtas tsBN o5z!.olrru (too3 6; painring ALFRED H. BARR The New American (r952) Dor,.,rrrtera*a

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Painted ar arm's length, with large gesrures, [these paintings] challenge both the painter and the observer. They envelop the eye, they seem immanent. They are often as big as mural paintings, but their scale as well as their lack of illusionistic depth are only coincidentally related to architectural decoration. Their flatnessis, rarher, a consequence of the artist's concern with the actual painting processas his prime instrument of expression, 3 concern which also tends to eliminate imitative suggestion o[ the forms, textures, co]ours of the real world, since these might cornpere with the primary realiry of paint ::4.r.t"1.":: As a consequence, rather than by intent, most of the paintings seem rbstract. Yet they are never formalistic or non-objective in spirit. Nor is there (in theory) rny preoccupation with the traditional aestheticsof "plastic values," conrposirion, qualiry of line, belury of surface, harmony of colour. When these occur in the paintings-and they often do-it is the result of a struggle for order ahnost as inruirive asthc initial chaos with which the paintings begin. Despite the high degree of abstraction, the painters insist that they are dccply involved with subject luatter or content. The content, however, is never explicit or obvious even when recognizable fornrs enrerge,rs in certrin paintines by de Kooning, Baziotes,and Gottlieb. Rarely do eny conscious rssociations explein the emotions of fear, qarery ;ln{rer,vroience, or trrnquilliry which these paintings transrnit or suggesr. In short these painters, as a mxtter of principle, do nothing dcliberately in thcir work to urake 'tomnrunication" casy.Yet in spite of their intransiqence, their followinq irrr'reeses. lrrgely becauscthe paintings thenrselveshave a sensuous,enotional, Jesthctic lnd lt tines f,lnrost mystical power which works and crn be overwheh-ning. . . . Many [of these artistsl fccl that thcir printing is r stubborn, dillicult, cven dcspcratc cflort to discoverthc 'lself.'or "realiry" ln efort co which the whole personaliryshould be rccklcssly conrttritted I paint, tlrnft>rc 1arr. Contronting r blank cenvasrhey rrtenrpr "to grasp ;rtrther.rtic being by :rction, decision. :r lcap of faith," to use Karl Jlspcrs' Existcnrirl phrase. Indeed one often herrs Existentialistcchoes in their words, but their 'hnxiery" their "comrtritntent," thc'ir 'drerdful frcedonr" concern thcir work prinr:rrily. Thcy clcfi:rntly reject the conventional vrlucs of the sociery which surrounds thc'nr, but they lre rrot politically org4gls even thouqh their printinr:s have been pr:rised end condenrncd rs sylrbolic dctnonstrattons of freedonr in a world in which freedonr conno[es r political rttitude. In recent years, sorlle of the painters have been impressed by thc Zen philosJ:rpanese ophy with its tnnscendentrl huruour rnd its explorarion of the sclf through intniriop. Ycr, though Existentialisnr'tndZcn have affordcd sorne cncouragcnlcnt Jnd sancriorrfo the rrrists, their art itself has been rffected only spor:rdically by rhcse philosophics (by corrrr:rsrwirh that of the older printer, Mrrk Tobey, whose lbstrrct printing hls bccu dccply und clircctly influenced by Tao md Zen).
'' Affied H. lJrrr, cxcerpts fiortt "ls Motlcrrt Art (lonrrnurristic?" M'u r9 5 :): se c. (i , l:- 11, tr ll- 3o. Ytrk l'itttts Mild:itil' (l)ccclrbcr r4,

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G ESTURAL ABSTRACTI O N

Alfred H, Barrand Rent d'Harnoncourt, directors oJ the Mqseum oJ'Modern Art, t964.

Surrealism, both philosophically and technically, had a more direct effect upon the painting of the group. Particularly in the early days of the movement, during the war, several painters were influenced by Andr6 Breton's progranlme of "pure psychic automatrsm . . . in the absenceof all control exercised by reason and outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation." Automatism was, and still is, widely used as a techniquc but rarely without some control or subsequentrevision. And from the first Breton's dependence upon Freudian and Marxian sanctions seemed less relevant than Jung's concern with myth and archaic symbol. . . . Abstract Expressionism, a phrase used ephenrcrally in Berlin in r9r9, was re-invented (by the writer) about r9z9 to designate Kandinsky's early abstractions that in certain ways do anticipate the American nlovement-to which the term was first applied in r946. However, almost to a nlan, the painters in this show deny that their work is "rbstract," at lcast in any pure, progranrmatic sense; and they rightly reject any significant association with German Expressionism, a lnovcment recently nruch exhibited in America.

GESTURAL ABSTRACTION

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