Page 23 - Studio International - January 1966

object or image (e.g., a comic strip, a beer can), extend
the concern for the immediately-felt of Abstract
Expressionism to the immediately-perceived. Just as a
Pollock might focus, as it were egotistically, on a single
mood and gesture, so the Pop artist might be diverted
by the single object he can grasp and touch. Both are
involved with quick gratification. Neither will draw
back to take the long view, psychologically on the one
hand, visually on the other. Op Art can be viewed, in
part, as growing from Pollock's drip paintings of
1947-50 as well as from the works of Still and Barnett
Newman. On the 'optical' qualities of the paintings of
these men the Op artists have imposed distinct form,
scientific devices and an obvious air of calculation.
Concrete Expressionists have retained the premise of
the arbitrary manipulation of form ; in their works one
sees a residuum of choice, if not of gesture.
But it is the elements these modes have in common
with each other that I want to contrast with Abstract
Expressionism. Where James Brooks once wanted
. . to get as much unknown on the canvas as I can,'
Ad Reinhardt's voice was now heard reminding his
contemporary and younger colleagues that 'in painting,
the idea should exist before the brush is taken up.'
Pop-ist James Rosenquist felt: 'I would be a stronger
painter if I made most of my decisions before I
approached the canvas.' Although of the Abstract
Expressionist generation but not himself an Abstract
Expressionist, Lorser Feitelson wanted to '... construct
a painting in which every step [was] deliberately and
critically pondered.'
Above Below
James Brooks Richard Anuszkiewicz Richard Anuszkiewicz, the Op artist, indicated the
Gant 1955 Water from the Rock 1961-63 attitude of the artist now liberated from the straight-
53 1/4 x 62 1/2 in. 56 x 52 in.
Albright-Knox Art Gallery Albright-Knox Art Gallery jacket of the self. 'The question no longer seems to be
Buffalo, New York Buffalo, New York
Gift of Seymour H. Knox Gift of Seymour H. Knox "figurative or non-figurative" but rather . . . one of
actual quality in whichever one of the two possible
means of expression the artist decides to employ.'
On the working level of conscious choice, Tom
Wesselmann said, 'the specific subject materials are
often determined by what is available to me.'
That a work of art could exist entirely apart from its
maker was unthinkable for the Abstract Expressionist,
but it became a perfectably acceptable notion to the
'new' avant-garde. 'To rely solely on egotistical
strength, to splash playfully about,' David Simpson
declared, 'is beside the point.' Al Held, a Concrete
Expressionist, said : 'What I wanted to do was to
formalise abstract expressionism.'
Whereas Abstract Expressionist paintings were defined
by the personal touch, the hand-made sign, Pop artist
Andy Warhol now thought '. . . somebody should be
able to do all my paintings for me. . .' While this is an
extreme statement of non-commitment, it reflects the
point of view held also by Alexander Liberman, who in
the early 1960's had his paintings executed by others
so that thought and activity would be kept separate
and distinct.
For the Abstract Expressionist the meaning of a
painting was implicit in the act of creating it. To the
various hard edge artists paintings suggested a host of
other things, least of all meanings forged in the process
of creation itself. According to Roy Lichtenstein, 'I
think the meaning of my work is that it's industrial.. .
From the beginning, I felt that the comic strip painting
had to be depersonalised. It had to express great
emotions—passion, fear, violence—in an impersonal,
removed, and mechanical manner.' Granted, the desire
to cloak intimate involvement is a Pop characteristic;
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