1. Though now one of the most visited monuments in the United States, it was highly criticized by some at first. What were a few of the criticisms?
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After viewing the work of Maya Lin, followed by The Case for Abstraction, watch one more 🙂 titled My Cat Can do That,
Create a quick (or a long one if you prefer) poem inspired by Abstract Expressionism, the work of Jackson Pollack below and My Cat Can do That: ( TWO PICTURES)
MOVING ON TO THE ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISTS , Where did they come from? What prompted the shift from representation and forms in painting to “action painting,” a term coined by New York critic . According to Rosenberg the canvas was “an arena in which to act”
it was the physicality of the paintings’ clotted and oil-caked surfaces that was the key to understanding them as documents of the artists’ struggle
Rosenberg’s critique shifted the emphasis from the object to the struggle itself, with the finished painting being only the physical manifestation, a kind of residue, of the actual work of art, which was in the act or process of the painting’s creation. This spontaneous activity was the “action” of the painter, through arm and wrist movement, gestures, brushstrokes, thrown paint, splashed, stained, scumbled and dripped. The painter would sometimes let the paint drip onto the canvas, while rhythmically dancing, or even standing in the canvas, sometimes letting the paint fall according to the subconscious mind, thus letting the part of the assert and express itself. All this, however, is difficult to explain or interpret because it is a supposed manifestation of the act of pure creation.
Abstract Expressionists were mostly located in New York after WWII. Their works record emotion and feelings present in the moment of creation of the work. Many had been working for the WPA prior to the war in a social realist style that was the result of pre-war nationalistic feelings. After the war (in which many of them served), old forms of expression no longer served. Jackson Pollack was influenced by Native American sand painters and their method of working standing over the piece and pouring paint from muralist David Siqueiros from whom he had taken a workshop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG9jQBj1eqE