Art History the \'Self\' Concept in Abstract

Art History

The 'Self' Concept in Abstract Expressionism Movement

Throughout many years, movements concerning approaches on different works of art often reflect principles that appeal to the utility and social function of artworks, which is the primary characteristic of Socialist art movement. Moreover, Cubism as an art movement subsists to creating ambiguous sense of space and use of geometric shapes to flatten the objects and subjects of the painting. Figures, objects, and subjects are broken into fragments and are overlapped with each other.

These are examples of important movements in art history that, somehow, deal with artworks as creations or products of an individual's conscious being, since these artworks have specific interpretations, functions, and purposes. But what if artworks cannot be easily interpreted, and have no specific functions and purposes?

The above-mentioned characteristics are illustrated in artworks created through the Abstract Expressionism movement. In this movement, there is a spontaneous assertion of feelings of the individual/artist. In addition, since the discipline utilizes abstraction, there are no definite styles, only subjective expressions of the artist's feelings, visually illustrated through his/her paintings. Abstract Expressionism is often associated with the Surrealist movement, where thoughts that are only found in dreams and the unconscious (Freudian discipline in psychoanalysis) are visually illustrated through various media, such as paintings and films, media forms which Luis Bunuel, famous Surrealist painter and filmmaker, uses in creating his works of art (in painting, The Persistence of Memory, and, in film, Un Chien Andalou).

However, despite the similarities in principles that Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism subsists to, Barnett Newman, famous abstract expressionist painter, believes otherwise. For him, Surrealism is not different with that of the Socialist movement, because, while Surrealism deals with the unconscious, it deals with themes that are commonly found in Socialist movements. In the discipline of abstract expressionism, artists are able to express themselves, without isolating and dissociating him/herself with Nature, as illustrated in Willem de Kooning's Marilyn Monroe (1954).