Art Review

Until a couple weeks ago, I never really gave art much thought. I knew that it surrounded me and whatnot but I never really went much further than that. One day though, while reading my APUSH book, I came across a type of art that was popular in the 1950s called abstract expressionism. It was really interesting to me the whole concept of letting your subconscious take over the art and just letting whatever you really feel go into it to make a creation. It’s probably my favorite kind of art just because it doesn’t even necessarily have to follow any rules. The only rule that seems to be implied is just having confidence to let yourself go and really paint whatever you feel like painting, instead of painting things that are conventional or traditional. The freedom of this style makes it appealing is what I’m trying to say.

            My favorite artists that use this technique are probably de Kooning and Rothko. I especially like Rothko because his paintings are really simple but they can mean a lot depending on how you want to view them, if you want to view them at all. I really like his use of color and how he doesn't really care whether it's completely coherent or not, it really is just his form on expression that comes out of it. Kooning uses more complex techniques and uses more colors in one painting. He tends to follow Picasso's method of abstractism. He was also more straightfoward with the messages he tried to spread through his paintings, especially those of society and culture criticism. Overall, I really do enjoy these two artists that sprouted out of the infamous abstract expressionist movement from the 1950s.