ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM
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Abstract representation first found expression in cubism and fauvism. The cubists and fauves, however, following immediately upon the classical tradition of sensual representation, still conceived their works in terms of' sensible objects. Thus portraiture, still life, landscape, and genre still remained the subject matter for painting, although conceived in a new dynamic and kinetic form. In England the parallel movement in this direction was made by Wyndham Lewis and the vorticists. For certain artists, however, the world of particular objects and sensible effects became integrated in their minds with the larger perspective of the cosmic whole. The idea of the relation between man and nature began to change. 'From the sculptor's point of view', writes Barbara Hepworth, 'one must either be the spectator of the object or the object itself. For a few years I became the object.' It was this change of the centre of gravity from outside to within and from the particular to the universal which finally led to the complete abandonment of representation in the particular sense. Only in completely abstract terms could the new idea of universality and personal integration find its true visual expression.
On the Continent it was Mondrian who first sensed the discrepancy in cubism; but in England it was not missed either. In a book entitled The New Art, the critic, Horace Shipp and the sculptor, Lawrence Atkinson, made an attempt to establish the true foundation of abstract art by distinguishing that based on inner principles from that derived from surface effects. Like Kandinsky, however, Atkinson slipped into neo-spiritualism with the result that a discrepancy arose between the material substance of his work and the 'spiritual' reality which it was intended to signify. There is evidence that this same discrepancy appears in the work of the neo-plasticists with the difference that Mondrian's 'reality' was Hegelian in character. But just as the cubists, in their last phase, could not resolve the discrepancy between the idea of equivalent relationships of the 'picture object' and their conceptual representation of the sensible world, so the neo-plasticists could not bridge the gap between the dynamic reality of ideas and the particular substance with which they worked. Thus the works of Mondrian tend to hover between symbolism in the particular sense of medieval art and the idea of plastic equivalence in modern art. Nevertheless, by relating the abstract to the new idea of reality, Mondrian raised abstract art to the level of the fine arts. In England Shipp and Atkinson laid a similar foundation, so that the ground was well prepared when, ten years later, the abstract movement established itself in force through the agency of Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, and Ben Nicholson.
The significance of this group lay in the fact that it was the first large movement in England to break entirely from the renaissance tradition of sensationalism and establish a process of development based on inner causes and principles. Thus Henry Moore has written: 'Between beauty of expression and power of' expression there is a difference of function. The first aims at pleasing the senses, the second has a spiritual vitality which for me is more moving and goes deeper than the senses.'
This spirit of universality, however, led to repercussions which carried the artist beyond the confines of his studio; it led to the abandonment of self-expression as the end in art and it led to a new integration of art and life. Thus the abstract artist was conceived as the 'constructive' artist and was identified with the reconstruction of society. It was in England that this conception was finally crystallized. In 1937 the constructivist, Naum Gabo, the architect, Leslie Martin, and the abstract painter, Ben Nicholson, collaborated in a publication entitled Circle. This publication, conceived in opposition to the surrealist movement, was designed to bring together in one volume the ideas and works of all artists and architects with a sense of the constructive approach relative to the integration and development of a modern society. In so doing Circle established itself, not only as a landmark in the English modern movement, but as a contribution to the modern movement as a whole.
In so far as the abstract manifestation, since the war, is concerned, the role of the artist has been one of further research, development, consolidation, and widening of activity rather than innovation. Today, therefore, it is not a question of producing a new 'ism', but of analysis and integration of previous 'isms'. In England this approach has been firmly established and perhaps the most positive achievement has been the collaborative effort in critical reassessment in the light of past experience. Nevertheless the intense widening of the abstract movement has led inevitably to academism, on the one hand, and to ambiguity, on the other; for, in England as elsewhere, abstract art presents itself in all its stages of development. That the movement is capable of taking on all the idiosyncrasies of its representational counterpart is now obvious; but this is natural -- time and judgement alone can establish the true values.
In spite of his dependence on freedom the visual artist has been led to the abstract not through a desire to increase his freedom of expression, but to deepen the reality of his work. This desire requires an approach which, superficially, is the reverse of traditional naturalism: it means that the artist must change his centre of gravity from outside the object of inspection to inside it. But, to begin at the centre of things and not from a point outside them means thinking in terms of universals rather than of particulars. This distinction is important because so much that goes under the name of abstract is, in reality, only a transitional stage where optical representation has been denuded of its particular content. But the particular cannot be torn from the visual world without a weakening of experience. Thus abstract expressionism and abstract impressionism, as ends in themselves, are a negative development. Properly speaking the abstract is a medium, not of the sensible, but of the intelligible and intuitive world; hence it must necessarily function in terms of universals. This does not mean that the individual and particular are denied in the abstract. On the contrary, the very fact that the form of the work must be determined by individual sensibility and present itself' in terms of shape and substance means that it must express itself as a particular. Abstract art, therefore, approaches the particular by way of the universal -- the reverse of naturalist art, yet at the same time a development of it.
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