Jenn Post 5

Jenn Shea

Abstract art was very controversial during the Cold War Era. Some supported the genre and said it was crucial to freedom of expression and that it did serve a purpose in American history. Some saw this new type of art as a way to compete culturally with other countries. From “Abstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold War,” “Abstract Expressionism could show the United States as culturally up-to-date in competition with Paris” (Cockcroft 151). As stated about the removal or destruction of expressionist murals in the “Art and Politics in Cold War America” article, “Julian Huxley, former Director-General of UNESCO, deplored such ‘witch-hunting’ in the United States. The murals’ removal, he said, was an ‘example of the growing tendency’ in this country ‘to exert political control over freedom of thought and expression’” (de Hart Mathews 159). The article also states that it was thought that the public should know not only the glorious but also the unfortunate matters and aspects of the country in order to prevent the repetition and continual of such mishaps and mistakes in the future (159).

Despite the defense of this art as having artistic and historical merit, many critics insisted that such art strayed from the norm of the country and did not represent or glorify American traditions and values: “For the assumption was that rejection of traditional ways of seeing form and space inherent in vanguard style of painting implied rejection of traditional world views” (de Hart Mathews156). Looking back on the readings of what Hitler considered degenerate art, such opposition to anything that strayed from the typical is quite comparative to what was felt by many critics of American Abstract Expressionism. It is interesting that even though the United States was appalled by Hitler’s and other dictator’s oppression of freedom, many Americans in the same way showed such an aversion to freedom of expression through opposition to modernism and abstract expressionism. Furthermore, Hitler saw any contradiction to the values he laid out as degenerate and as a threat, as the many individuals in the United States saw anything that did not represent Americanism as a threat. Many critics of abstract and other forms of expressionism felt that the art should be banned because it acted as “an instrument of Communist subversion in terms that blended fact with fantasy” (de Hart Matthews 155). In addition, art was not only judged in its own context with artistic techniques such as color, image, meaning, etc; it was also judged in the context of the artist and his or her political beliefs. Thus, any artist who seemed to express any sort of anti-American sentiment or any resistance to the practices of the American government was seen as communist or a threat, as was their art. The reason behind such varied reactions, therefore, seems to be that although many Americans were able to see this new form of art as just that, many more sought to involve the artists’ political affiliations and read into their art from a somewhat paranoid political standpoint as they were heavily influenced and threatened by the idea of communist infiltration in the United States.

1) In this painting titled “Salome” by Norris Embry, a painting of a nude woman is depicted. Perhaps a representation of the biblical figure, this woman seems to be dancing. The king portrayed in the painting may be a representation of King Herod, a tetrarch. The use of harsh, thick lines and dark shading makes this painting seem very raw and somewhat frightening. To supporters of the Abstract Expressionist movement, this art would seem brilliant in its use of rough shapes and slight distortion of the woman’s arms, as well as the unintelligible writing in certain places in the painting. Although the painting does hint at Christianity, which was an American value, the ambiguity of the woman’s facial expression along with the massing of inconclusive shapes and unclear writing would have made this painting seem thoroughly unrepresentative of American values and would seem foreign and unidentifiable to the American public. This is discussed by Jane de Hart Mathews: “Thus for the untutored viewer, the art of the abstract expressionists was not only subjectless in the traditional sense, but it seemed conspicuously foreign in terms of historical antecedents. And since public consciousness had no part in the work, it was perforce elitist” (170).

2) In this 1951 painting “Abstract Landscape” by Helen Frankenthaler, we see a lot more use of colors and more ambiguous shapes and forms. These shapes and lines are also less harsh than the ones in the previous painting by Embry. They are more fluid and curvy and have more of a freeing and liberating feeling than a rigid traditionalist depiction of a landscape would have. The images portrayed are not hindered by construct of what is commonly thought of as a landscape painting. This painting seems intriguing from the non-accusing eye in its use of subtle, calming, and almost translucent tones of blue, white, and red and contrasting use of harsher and darker reds, yellows, greens, and blacks. This contrast draws the eye more readily to the darker and harsher tones that seem to make up the foreground of the painting, but it also allows for a delayed recognition of the lighter and more gentle tones in the background. There seems to be a range of mountains or hills in the background, and several other shapes can be perceived as flowers, birds, or other types of nature. To a more paranoid and politically geared eye, the painting might seem reminiscent of communist values, as there is a very distinguishable and repeated use of the colors red and yellow, which came to be the colors of communist governments. The traditionalist would also become frustrated by the blatant obscurity and ambiguity of the image.

3) This image of the “Broken Obelisk” statue constructed by Barnett Newman in the 1960s shows a typical obelisk on top of a pyramid but with the flat end broken off. To a supporter of expressionism, this Egyptian-like statue would seem particularly interesting in its location and contrast with the contemporary and complete buildings in the background. The omission of the rest of the obelisk may represent an artist’s loss or something that the artist saw as missing in his life or in the country. To a traditionalist, this would seem to be an incomplete and functionless structure. As stated by de Hart Matthews, “To compound matters, they were confronted in absract expressionism by a form of vanguard art characterized by two dimesionality, fluid space, lack of closed shapes, and deliberately unfinished quality, and an ‘overall’ composition that diffused any notion of focus” (171). Traditionalists may have also seen this as unrepresentative of America due to its lack of American style in the sense of architecture and design and was instead derived from a totally different and ancient culture.

4) In this 1980 painting titled “Bacchus #20” by Elaine de Kooning, upon first sight there seems to be a mass of gray and other masses of green, yellow, and blue. However, upon closer look, one can see the very faint outlines of human figures in the gray. Bacchus by definition is another name for Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, so it is probable that these figures have some type of contextual representation of the god. This painting, like Frankenthaler’s, lends a feeling of freedom because the strokes are so fluid and seemingly less planned than they would be in a more rigid depiction of the subject. Traditionalists would see this as an untidy confusion and sloppy mix of colors, and would instead portray the god in a portrait that would characterize his majestic status in a more recognizable human form. Such opposition to abstract art would say that this painting seems to be a lazy attempt at the portrayal of such a prominent figure in Greek mythology and that the painting suggests no talent in portraying the god. In “Art and Politics in Cold War America,” de Hart Matthews notes the traditionalist view that “these canvases with their static masses of color or tangled surfaces of dripped paint provided no indication of the artist’s talent or index to his actual labor” (171).

5) In this painting from 1957 titled “Burst” by Adolph Gottlieb, there is a red circle above a mass of untidy black brush strokes. To an abstract artist, the use of these both dark but very different colors might be pleasing or at least attention-grabbing to the eye, especially with the rest of the canvas as white. The separation of these two ambiguous figures may also be a point of interest to such an artist, as it may be representative of any type of social, cultural, of even political divide, or simply a detachment of two bodies that the artist recognized as significant in his life or experience. To a traditionalist, this painting might seem functionless, incomplete, and lacking in any demonstration of the artist’s talent. To a “witch hunter,” this may seem representative of communist society with the use of these traditionally communist colors as well as the possibility that these colors together seem mildly violent when paired with the title of the painting of “Burst.”