target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_d9b385aa-baab-5601-b478-899a1aaedc96">aNeurological Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; bNeurocenter, Swiss Medical Network, Clinique Valmont, Montreux, Switzerland
Abstract
Visual art is one of the means of non-verbal communication that bypasses cultural, societal, language and, more importantly, time differences. It allows for establishing a multilevel connection between the artist and art receiver. Production of visual art is a form of expression of emotions. Art reception involves the initiation of a cascade of emotions and thoughts based on visual input. One of the ways to express artistic content is through abstraction. Abstract visual art is based on portraying elements that do not represent any real, objective shapes, with the means of lines, colours, tones and texture. Abstract expressionism is a form of abstract art infused with strong emotional and expressive content. The combination of expression of emotions in abstraction requires almost direct translation between neuronal function and artistic output without using formal shapes or references as means of communication. That is why it is very interesting to look at the artistic output in abstract expressionists with neurological disorders affecting the brain. Here, we review several key abstract expressionists, including James Brooks, Agnes Martin and Willem de Kooning, and their artistic production in the context of brain disease.
© 2018 S. Karger AG, Basel
Visual art is one of the means of non-verbal communication that bypasses cultural, societal, language and, more importantly, time differences. It allows for establishing a multilevel connection between the artist and art receiver. The production of visual art is a form of expression of emotions. Art reception involves the initiation of a cascade of emotions and thoughts based on visual input. One of the ways to express artistic content is through abstraction. Abstract visual art is based on portraying elements not representing any real, objective shapes, with the means of lines, colours, tones and texture. Abstract expressionism is a form of abstract art infused with strong emotional and expressive content. The combination of expression of emotions in abstraction requires almost direct translation between neuronal function and artistic output without using formal shapes or references as a means of communication. That is why it is very interesting to look at the artistic output in abstract expressionists with neurological disorders affecting the brain. Here, we review several key abstract expressionists, including James Brooks, Agnes Martin and Willem de Kooning, and their artistic production in the context of brain disease.
Abstract expressionism arose in New York after the Second World War. The war was over, but what lingered was emotional trauma caused by genocide and the first usage of nuclear weapons, the Great Depression, and a seeming fall of humanity. Abstract expressionism grew in the climate of the Cold War and the USA becoming a leading political and military global powerhouse. The latter developments were fuelled by very strong economic growth and initial societal optimism in the early 1950s. However, further down the line, the American public mood evolved into paranoia of communist infiltration, hunting for communist sympathisers with the use of severe repression. In this societal and political climate abstract expressionism became an embodiment and expression of freedom through action painting [Moma.org, 2018]. From the artistic perspective, abstract expressionism was a form of liberation from European, especially French, modernism avant-garde. In this context it also had the symbolic significance of a local, American or New York artistic style as opposed to Picasso and others [Gaugh and de Kooning, 1982]. The advent of abstract expressionism allowed for New York to become an influential, global artistic centre [Moma.org, 2018].
The first artist linked to abstract expressionism was Clyfford Still. He was considered the initiator of this movement. Others to join were Jackson Pollock followed by Willem de Kooning [The Art Story, 2018a]. The group grew larger and included Adolph Gottlieb, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell, among others. There was no uniform definition of abstract expressionism. The artists rejected widely accepted stylistic patterns of regionalism, surrealism and cubism. Instead they used abstraction to express emotional content. This expression quite often involved unusual techniques with the use of wall paints, or abandoning easels, painting directly on a canvas rotated according the artistic needs and using emotive and abstract gestures. In addition to this, abstract expressionism was influenced by jazz music that was contemporary to that time, which by itself was an artistic expression of freedom and improvisation. Some artists, such as James Pollock, would often listen to jazz while making his gestural paintings [Moma.org, 2018]. The connection between jazz and abstract expressionism was very diligently acknowledged by Willem de Kooning:
Miles Davis bends the notes. He doesn’t play them, he bends them. I bend the paint.[Moma.org, 2018]
The Irascible Eighteen
Abstract expressionism can also be seen as a form of protest against the established art world. This was reflected in the open protest initiated by abstract expressionists which was fuelled by the Metropolitan Museum of Art [Larson, 2002]. This institution decided to support young and emerging modern painters by organising a national juried exhibition entitled “American Painting Today, 1950.” In response, abstract expressionists gathered together at Adolf Gottlieb apartment in Brooklyn and drafted a letter of protest, which was printed on the front page of the New York Times (May 22nd, 1950) with the following headline: “18 Painters Boycott Metropolitan: Charge ‘Hostility to Advanced Art’” [Larson, 2002].
The artists stated they would not submit their work to “the monster national exhibition” and they expressed their concern that based on the choice of jurors the likelihood of advanced art inclusion into this exhibition would be minimal. This letter attracted wide attention and, in the editorial published in the Herald Tribune on May 23rd, 1950, which accused the authors of the distortion of facts, the group was branded “The Irascible Eighteen.” Following the public interest in this conflict, Life magazine published a photo taken by Nina Leen of “The Irascibles” in its edition of January 15th, 1951 (Fig. 1). Of note is the fact that three original signatories of the protest letter were not present in it, namely Weldon Kees, Hans Hoffmann, and Fritz Bultman [Alloway and MacNaughton, 1995; Larson, 2002].
Following this protest, the artists continued their individual production and they took over lower Manhattan within the area bounded by 8th and 12th Street between First and Sixth Avenues as their artistic cradle, spending hours in local cafeterias discussing art and life. They continued their artistic activities in local studios, including Jackson Pollock’s studio on East 8th Street, Willem de Kooning’s and Philip Guston’s on East 10th, and Franz Kline’s at the Cedar Street Tavern on University Place [Moma.org, 2018]. They soon started selling their paintings on a larger scale at rising prices, and some became the most expensive living painters.
Behind the spectacular success of abstract expressionism there lies individual cost and dysfunction. The “irascible” tag synonymises touchy, grumpy, and irritable, pointing towards possible mood and/or personality disorders. Schildkraut et al. [1994] analysed the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in 15 New York abstract expressionists, most of whom can be seen in Figure 1. The authors suggested that artistic creation in abstract expressionists was based on psychic automatism, which involves involuntary actions that are not controlled by the conscious mind. The artist would translate subconscious content through these automatic functions using free associations into abstract art heavily loaded
