Art History Masters Thesis

Running Head : Expressionism

Abstract Expressionism

[Name of Writer]

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Abstract Expressionism

Abstract

During the Second World War , a large number of Surrealists ran away from Europe to settle in New York . They influenced young painters who were struggling to find support for American art . The initiated a new movement , called Abstract Expressionism , which was greatly influenced by the thoughts of the European innovators of abstraction . Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning played a vital role in this movement . This takes into account the works and paintings

of many pioneers in this field . The most famous and the most influential ones have been discussed in more detail , as they clearly deserve more appraisal and importance Wilham Seitz and Serge Guilbaut have been discussed thoroughly in this . Jimmy Ernst , his life , and his work Voices of Silence ' have also been covered in considerable depth during this research . Moreover discussion of Brice Marden and his art of drawing with sticks provide an interesting scene to readers . Picasso and Alfred Maurer have also received significance during the completion of this study . And of course , this would have been incomplete if Jackson Pollock had not been mentioned in it : hence , he has also received noteworthy presence in this

Abstract Expressionism

Two developments in particular make this an especially pertinent moment to reconsider the aesthetic merits , ideological contexts , and consequent import of Abstract Expressionism the neo-expressionist tendencies in current European as well as North American art . A further inducement to extend the discourse about Abstract Expressionism is the appearance in published form of three major books about this art-books which share the common heritage of originally being doctoral dissertations . Serge Guilbaut 's study , finished under T J Clark in 1978 at UCLA1 , is characteristic of the social art history produced at what until recently was the leading department of its type in the US Even before its appearance in book form , an event that , as one critic rightly noted , has put the history of Abstract Expressionism back on its feet , Guilbaut 's work was already regarded by some as one of the most well-researched yet provocative assessments of this movement in painting

Similarly , the late Wilham Seitz 's 1955 Princeton dissertation - the first on this at any university has long been cited in the mainstream literature , although available only in microfilmed copies Unlike Guilbaut 's thesis , Seitz 's dissertation was not indicative of Princeton 's orientation (except for the tradition of classical humanism permeating the work , and was apparently accepted as a worthwhile only after the personal intervention of Alfred Barr

The third dissertation , Art-as-Politics , by Annette Cox in 1977 at the University of North Carolina , Chapel Hill , was done with Donald Kuspit holder of a PhD philosophy under Adorno and now a leading art critic who has written some penetrating critiques of Abstract Expressionism Like some other studies at North Carolina when Kuspit was on the faculty there

Cox 's dissertation addresses the political dimension of art...