Art informel

Art informel. A dominant European art movement of the post-World War II period, flourishing from the mid-1940s to the early 1960s. It encompasses a range of abstract styles united by a rejection of geometric formalism and an embrace of spontaneity, gesture, and raw materiality. The term, coined by critic Michel Tapié, translates to "informal art," signaling its break with structured composition in favor of intuitive, often highly personal expression.

Origins and development

The movement emerged in the devastated cultural landscape of post-war Europe, particularly in Paris, as a direct reaction to the trauma of World War II and the preceding horrors of Nazism. Artists sought an aesthetic language free from the rational order associated with pre-war movements like Cubism and De Stijl, which many felt had failed to prevent catastrophe. Early exhibitions, such as those at the Galerie René Drouin in Paris, were pivotal. Key theoretical texts, including Michel Tapié's "Un Art Autre" (1952), provided a framework, while the rise of American Abstract Expressionism, witnessed in Europe through events like the 1951 exhibition at the Galerie de France, created a transatlantic dialogue. The movement found significant parallel developments in Italy with Alberto Burri and Emilio Vedova, and in Spain with the group El Paso.

Characteristics and style

Art informel is characterized by its emphasis on the physical act of painting and the innate qualities of materials. Techniques often involved vigorous, gestural brushwork, dripping, slashing, and scratching into the paint surface, as seen in the work of Hans Hartung. Artists like Jean Fautrier pioneered *haute pâte* (thick paste), building heavily textured, relief-like canvases. There was a frequent use of non-traditional materials such as sand, tar, fabric, and ash, notably in the assemblages of Alberto Burri. The compositions are typically non-hierarchical, avoiding central focus in favor of all-over fields of energy and matter. This approach shares affinities with the automatic techniques of Surrealism and the meditative mark-making found in Zen Buddhism and Eastern calligraphy.

Major artists and works

Among the foundational figures was Wols (Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze), whose small, intricate, and psychologically charged watercolors and paintings, like those from his *"Bilder"* series, were highly influential. Jean Fautrier's seminal *"Otages"* (Hostages) series, begun during the war, used thick impasto to create visceral, abstracted images of suffering. Hans Hartung became renowned for his dynamic, calligraphic networks of black lines against colored grounds, as in *"T-1956-18"*. In Canada, Jean-Paul Riopelle, associated with the Automatistes, created dense, mosaic-like accumulations of paint applied with a palette knife. The Spanish painter Antoni Tàpies developed a deeply materialist language using mixed media to evoke walls, earth, and symbolic markings, reflecting the influence of Catalan culture.

Relationship to other movements

Art informel is the primary European counterpart to American Abstract Expressionism, particularly the action painting of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, with both movements prioritizing gesture and existential authenticity. It diverged from the more calculated, hard-edge abstraction of movements like Geometric abstraction and the later Op art. Within Europe, it overlapped with and influenced Tachisme, a French style focusing on spots and stains of color. It also shared a deep concern with materiality with the Italian movement Arte Povera and provided a crucial precedent for Art Brut, championed by Jean Dubuffet. Its focus on process directly informed subsequent movements like Lyrical Abstraction.

Legacy and influence

The movement's radical emphasis on material, gesture, and subjective freedom permanently expanded the vocabulary of abstract painting. It paved the way for the resurgence of expressive, gestural painting in the late 1970s and 1980s, notably in German Neo-expressionism as practiced by artists like Georg Baselitz and Anselm Kiefer. Its legacy is evident in the continued exploration of process and anti-compositional form in contemporary art practices. Major holdings of Art informel works can be found in institutions such as the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, and the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf.

Category:Art movements Category:Modern art Category:20th-century art