Abstract Expressionism: Post WWII American Society

The Abstract Expressionism art movement was a product of post World War II American society. The social and political environment leading into the 1940’s are important in understanding how the Abstract Expressionism movement emerged. According to Sidra Stich, “As America moved into a position of political and economic leadership, newfound pride in the American way of life ad American culture flourished” (Stich, pg. 6). After World War II, America’s newfound patriotism fueled a cultural boom in society. According to Stich, “Concurrent with the emergence of Abstract Expressionism within the realm of vanguard art was burgeoning interest in the history of American culture. Before World War II most major universities offered but a few courses in American studies. Suddenly, with the burst of postwar confidence in America, full-fledged American studies programs became ubiquitous” (Stich, pg. 8). During the time in which the Abstract Expressionism movement emerged there was a huge surge of Patriotism and interest in American culture. According to Stich, “Abstract Expressionism had engendered an outspoken and self-conscious concern about establishing an American identity for art: that is to say, the recognition of a body for art: that is to say, the recognition of a body of art as the product of American artists, living in America, and producing an art of equivalent or superior value to European art” (Stich, pg. 7). The American artists during the 1940’s, wanted to develop something uniquely American and were striving to establish an identity of their own.

In post World War II American society, there was an increase in patriotism but there were also post war anxieties. The American public’s eyes were opened to the horrors of war during World War II including the first nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In the wake of World War II, Americans began to make the transition into a new world and this influenced the emergence of the Abstract Expressionism art movement. In a book by Spilsbury, the artist Jackson Pollock summed up this transition in the statement, “It seems to me that the modern painter cannot express his age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or any past culture. Each age finds its own technique” (Spilsbury, pg. 11). In this statement Pollock describes the relationship between art, culture and society. According to Richard Bauman, “For less idealistic social critics who wished to distinguish among different cultures, sometimes in the name of evolution, culture was the creative expression of a particular society through its symbols, literature, art, and music and, for some, its institutions and values and experiences that shaped them” (Bauman, pg. 4). Each culture has a unique artistic movement or expression which is a reflection of the particular culture’s society. According to Spilsbury, “Thousands of U.S. troops left home for Europe and Asia. The American public then began to see shocking images and descriptions of suffering, death, and destruction, which were sent home by photographers, filmmakers, and journalists. In the mid-1940s, several artists working in and around New York shared the idea of expressing their strong emotions through their art. This was a product of their feelings about the world just after World War II, and the belief that art should mirror the times (Spilsbury, pg. 10). The Abstract Expressionists felt that they had to develop a new artistic style that would accurately reflect their feelings in post World War II American Society.

The world had changed after World War II, and artists felt that they had to adapt to the new cultural changes in American society. According to Richard Bauman, “Some subcultures-intellectual, literary, musical, or artistic- had always been avant-garde or, in different terms, ‘adversary cultures.’ Now there was talk of a ‘counterculture’ or ‘bomb culture.’ Far from pursuing ‘the best,’ cultural rebel spurned all aspects of the authority that seemed to them to determine the criteria by which the best was chosen” (Bauman, pg. 7). This sums up how the Abstract Expressionists were cultural rebels who rejected post World War II society and authority. According to Spilsbury, “After the war, several young artists in New York felt that it was time for a new direction in art. They included Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Willem de Kooning. The artists all knew each other, but they did not work as a group or set out to form a movement in art. They felt that the world had revealed itself to be a more horrific place than before the war, for example, since atomic bombs had been dropped on Japan (Spilsbury, pg. 10). Another example of this can be seen in an article by Robert C. Hobbs when he stated, “Thus, during their formative years the Abstract Expressionists were floundering through a number of half-understood truths about modern art and attempting to find a way to communicate their feelings about the apocalyptic state of the world” (Hobbs, pg. 299). A group of artists developed the Abstract Expressionism art movement in the wake of World War II to express their feeling about the world.

Atomic Bomb Mushroom Cloud over Nagasaki, Japan 1945