Space in Abstract Expressionism

Author(s): Radka Zagoroff Donnell

Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Winter, 1964), pp. 239-
249
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics
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 RADKA ZAGOROFF DONNELL

Space in Abstract Expressionism

I pectations in respect to real space. The

effect of the illusion depended on a con-
FROM THE RENAISSANCE to the end of the
nineteenth century the artist in narrative, to tinuity of normal expectations in respect
the objects' positions in space and their
portrait, and landscape painting was as- mutual interrelations and scale.
sumed to inhabit, as nearly as possible, the After the Mannerist interlude in which
same spatial system as the one operating this
in the picture.1 This was the case until introduction continuity was undermined by the
of spatially indeterminate
C6zanne's plastic topography of nature, and
ambiguous areas from a stereometric
Gauguin's Synthesism, and Van Gogh's ex- point of view, the objective reality of the
plicit reduction of landscape to a meeting world in the
picture was dramatized to
ground between reality and emotion be- such a degree by Caravaggio that in the
trayed an entirely new view of natural and complete realization of the continuity be-
pictorial space. After Cdzanne and the tween the two spatial systems, the
concept
Post-Impressionists, through the progres- of the picture plane as boundary between
sive loss of object-quality in representation, them was violated. This assumed con-
the break between pictorial and natural
tinuity of spatial experience between pic-
space was dramatized to its fullest extent. ture space and spectator space, adum-
To the "ideated," psychic distance from brated to different
"the represented" was added a physical dis- degrees in the following
centuries, was shattered completely by the
continuity between the spatial system of
the picture and that of the spectator. Post-Impressionists. With differing empha-
ses the autonomy of picture space was as-
The view of the picture as a window had
serted, stressing the interest in composition
allowed for different penetrations into and
the emotions in the creation of pic-
depth, but regardless of the width of the tures; interest in the positive relation be-
tract of space used and the expressive dis- tween
and spectator space
tortions which occurred within the limits becamepicture space to other considerations.
of enlargement and diminution, spatial secondary
Cezanne's tight and architectonic com-
orientation in the picture space had been
position has importance for Abstract Ex-
possible along stereometric lines. The pressionism because of the
three-dimensional cube conception of the his consistency of
response to the whole of the canvas.
picture presupposed a similar cube around Whatever his reasons, Cezanne activated
the spectator, that is, space extending in
of the canvas by a sustained and
both directions according to the same every part
total response. He disposed his energies,
principles. Even though in the picture it whether because of
was illusory, by looking at this illusory compositional con-
cerns or as a response to perceived struc-
space one could derive normal spatial ex- tures of
experience, with as much spon-
RADKA ZAGOROFFDONNELL is a practicing artist. taneity and innocence of the eye and the

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 240
hand as his world-view permitted. In fusing
the facet structure of his forms with the
actual sections of the canvas,2 Cezanne
forced attention on the physical part which
the canvas plays in the process of picture-
making and the actual making-process of
pictures as such; more than this, it is the
vitality of his sustained effort and his
moral determination in the physical pres-
ence of the canvas that marks him as an
ancestor of Abstract Expressionism.
Although the Cubist analysis of objec-
tive reality and circulating vision tele-
scoped into one multiple or simultaneous
view of objects and assumed a continuity
of vision in these terms, it provided a link
between the spatial world of observer and
of the picture only by a reference, reference
to the kind of evidence we have in real
space and to the basis on which we decide
in real space that there are three-dimen-
sional objects. In short, it provided only
an oblique reference to either the space of
the picture or that of the spectator, and
assumed between them a continuity of in-
terpretation.
The awareness of the canvas as a flat sur-
face, which overtly and consistently influ-
ences the arrangement of the picture ele-
ments,3 reached its climax in Synthetic
Cubism, but with curious results. The
articulation of the surface into depth by
means of color planes, and the distribution
of object quality over a series of planes by
means of transparency, sections, simul-
taneity, and positive-negative reading of
shapes, emphasized the nature of the pic-
ture plane as a literal plane, but it also
helped to dematerialize it. The canvas
being an object of one plane assigns it a
difficult place in the Cubist universe; that
is, the fact that it consists of only one plane
makes it spatially neutral, except in rela-
tion to other planes inside and outside
the picture. It was this fact that led the
Cubist to texturize the canvas and thus in-
volve it consistently not only with the kind
of space presented on it but also with the
actual space immediately adjoining. Ad-
hering to the concept of plane, the Cubist
introduced texture as depth dimension in
order to localize it spatially and to make it
concrete. While the concept of transpar-
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RADKA ZAGOROFF DONNELL
ency was crucial in accommodating the
picture plane to its dual role as a trans-
parent plane and a material plane, the
material introduced on it and the emphasis
of the material constituting it served to
make it concrete. The general material
enrichment of the picture surface in Syn-
thetic Cubism is spatially justified, as it is
in Abstract Expressionism. Paradoxically,
Cubism has helped to point out the object
quality of the canvas and the materials of
picture-making, the medium, in a way that
carries over into Abstract Expressionism.
But its most significant contribution is
that it has helped the artist to see the pic-
ture plane not only as a flat, two-dimen-
sional but also as a spatially neutral field,
as a void, as a tabula rasa.
Neoplasticism can be said to have made
of pictures modules of two-dimensional or-
ganization; hence the feeling that the
modules could be repeated as elements in
the appropriate architectural context, i.e.,
act as walls. The Neoplasticists have so
exhaustively defined their space that only
by repetition or arrangement can variety
be produced. Put differently, the organiza-
tion of space in Neoplastic pictures is so
taut and powerful that it seems to extend
into the adjoining, less defined space. Ab-
stract Expressionist pictures are not domi-
nated by an architectural role. The term
wall-painting has not helped to place
Abstract Expressionist pictures in a better
context; on the whole, it does more harm
than good by reducing them to wall
decoration. True enough, Abstract Expres-
sionists respond to the picture plane more
as to a part of architecture than as to a fig-
ure of plane geometry, and Abstract Ex-
pressionist pictures have a strong relation
to the space of the observer, as strong as
Neoplastic pictures; both define it, Neo-
plasticism by principle, Abstract Expres-
sionism by intrusion. Even when Abstract
Expressionist pictures are not overt reliefs,
they include tactile differentiations and
material differentiations in the picture to a
degree that it plays up the contact of the
picture surface with the space of the ob-
server rather than the flatness of the pic-
ture as a break in real space. Because of the
tactile value of its forms, it asserts tactile
Space in Abstract Expressionism
space around it. In addition, the execution
so emphatically shows the presence of the
hand that it cannot help asserting the space
in which it moves and feels.4 In Neo-
plasticism the size of the shapes is so com-
pletely incorporated in the picture that,
even when the picture is big, the size of the
shapes is not projected in relation to the
space of the observer; the Neoplastic pic-
ture is not monumental. In Abstract Ex-
pressionism the size of the shapes is used in
a way which refers to actual space percep-
tions, i.e., to the relation of such shapes to
the space of the observer; accordingly such
works can be monumental. The picture
plane is thus again frontally related, and
because of the strength of this frontal inter-
relation, the problem of what to do with
the edges of the picture plane is not as
paramount as with Cubism and Neo-
plasticism. The contours of the canvas in
Neoplastic pictures are integral to the
horizontal-vertical system which structures
their composition, whereas in Abstract
Expressionist pictures of the Pollock vari-
ety they act as arbitrary boundaries to an
activity, as physical rather than formal
boundaries.
For Suprematism to dwell on the flatness
of the picture plane would have been to
make too much of its objective nature.
Freed from an objective frame of reference,
reference to recognizable objects and tra-
ditions even in regard to the picture plane,
Suprematism proceeded to make it the
stage for objective disembodiment. The
vehemence with which the Suprematists
approached their aim has not failed to
attach to the picture plane an aura of the
hallowed ground of highly motivated ac-
tion. This is not to say that other artists
before had not felt as strongly about mak-
ing pictures. With the Suprematists one
gets the feeling that the canvas acted on
them as a signal to a complex combat. The
word arena has been frequently used of the
picture plane by Abstract Expressionists,
but Suprematism first demonstrated the
precariousness and daring implicit in the
decisions involved in the act of painting.
Van Gogh may have shown the psycho-
logical feat which goes into the painting of
pictures and which can take place on the
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241
edge of madness, but Suprematism placed
officially the painting of pictures in relation
to action and showed it to be one kind of
moral action, and thus introduced into the
painter's action the drama, the freedom,
and the consequence which pertain to
moral action. The live and moral response
to the picture plane of Abstract Expres-
sionism is here prefigured with great force
and can help to an understanding of the
Abstract Expressionist attitude to the pic-
ture plane, not just in relation to history
but also in relation to its special aims.
Looking at Suprematist pictures super-
ficially, one finds them very close to
schematic textbook illustrations of the ten-
sion of pictorial elements on the picture
plane. This similarity has made it easy to
interpret Suprematism as a streamlined
exercise on the principles of pictorial ten-
sion and hard to see its contribution to
later styles. The compression of means in
Suprematism dramatizes the impersonal
force of exemplary pictorial action rather
than isolates spatial tensions peculiar to the
picture plane. In contrast to Neoplasti-
cism, which marshalled pictorial tensions
in terms of the plane as architectural ele-
ment, in terms of one unified spatial sys-
tem, Suprematism presented tension on the
picture plane as conflicts of two kinds of
spatial categories-of real, architecturally
undefined space and of geometrically di-
gested space. The diagonal which it uses is
not designed to serve as the path of reces-
sion into the cube of three-dimensional
space, but indicates the penetration of real
space adjacent to the picture through the
picture and out as a path of action; this
non-geometric diagonal is contrasted with
the geometric value of the picture plane
as a shape; the straight line, in the one
case, is taut, optimal, individual action, and
in the other case, geometric definition,
generalized action. Sometimes the picture
plane is treated merely as that which is
given, in contrast to what man's actions
add. This contrast is made with breath-tak-
ing economy in Malevich's White on White.
The elements in terms of which this oppo-
sition is stated are identical as far as pic-
torial language is concerned; they are both
 242 RADKA ZAGOROFF DONNELL

white, both identical in shape and dimen- ditions of the pictures and do not stand for
sional value, i.e., they are both flat. objects (nor is it understood that they are
Without immersing itself in the projec- to be given interpretations in real space
tion of ideological contents, as the Su- literally life-size),5 the effect of the pictures
prematists did, Abstract Expressionism has is a complete chaos. This is not helped even
aspired to the breadth of statement which when uniformity in the size of the elements
Suprematism introduced. The importance or movements predominates. Neither do
of Suprematism in relation to Abstract Ex- comparisons to scientific enlargements, bac-
pressionism is that it cleared the field of terial culture slides, aerial photography,
the picture plane of the conflict between astronomical photography, X-ray pictures,
the two-dimensionality of the canvas and or any other aspects of "The New Land-
the three-dimensional projection of space scape," named by Kepes, place these fig-
which preoccupied Cubism. After Suprema- urations in any viable context.6 Superfi-
tism, this conflict emerged as meaningful cially there is a resemblance to the fasci-
only in terms of the different painter's nating documentary that scientists have so
actions which it permitted. On the whole, diligently produced. But in viewing these
Suprematism showed the artist in an active scientific records, the actual size is made
relation toward the elements of experience clear and we are told what we are looking
which Abstract Expressionism also claims at and where in relation to our everyday
to do. experience it is to be found. The dizzying
Abstract Expressionists have, on the effect of Abstract Expressionist pictures
whole, a variable and flexible attitude to- derives from the fact that there is no special
ward the picture plane. For their purposes location for the viewer to look at the pic-
its two-dimensionality does not exclusively tures, no angle from which they would fall
or exhaustively define it. The use of the in place. This may be true of Cubist, Fu-
action metaphor of painting of pictures has turist, and other dynamically conceived
made it possible and desirable to call the pictures also, but here the complete lack of
picture plane a "field of action" or an consistent scale adds to the confusion.
"arena," always in reference to the kind of Critics have seen Cubism as an illustration
action the artist, in each case, is conceived of the principle of relativity, and nothing
to be engaged in. The character of the prevents them from seeing Abstract Ex-
picture plane as material resistance as well pressionism as such, except statements
as ground for material application obvi- from the artist disavowing any interest in
ously and consciously influences the artist's scientific space. Neither is talk of private
actions in both a narrow and a wide sense. space and psychological space helpful in
He needs to treat the picture plane as a bringing one in closer contact with Abstract
plane only when he is thinking of it in Expressionist pictures because of the asso-
terms of planes. A good example of this ciated cliches of anti-socialism, solipsism,
complex and rich attitude toward the and anarchism. Private space is not given
picture plane is Hofmann's The City as a scale to a map. It stands for the se-
(1958). Here the picture surface is exposed quence of decisions which are irreversible
to an interplay with the light in the space (which thus places it temporally as an act)
of the observer which is a characteristic of but which can be recaptured (as a whole)
Abstract Expressionism in general. because private space has been disengaged
from its temporal context. In order to keep
II
these decisions literally graphic, Abstract
Expressionists take a free recourse to all
The huge size of Abstract Expressionist visual scale systems including those of still-
pictures, together with the ambiguity of life scale, of landscape scale, of portrait
size relations within the pictures, has caused scale, of battle scenes, of macro- and micro-
great discomfort. Since their size relation- views of nature, of handwriting and print,
ships do not consistently define depth con- and of geometrical ratio systems. Private

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Figure 1. Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, 1910.
In Wilhelm Boeck and Jaime Sabartes, Picasso. New York, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1957.

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Figure 2. Piet Mondrian, Composition2 1922.
In H. W. Janson with Dora Jane Janson (eds.), Key Monumentsof the History of Art. Englewood, N. J.,
Prentice-Hall Inc., and New York, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Credit for photograph: The Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum Collection.

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Space in A bstract Expressionism
space does not define a special area of hu-
man experience; it is not a metaphor for a
hiding place, but it stands for ways of mov-
ing in and out of all areas of human ex-
perience; hence its predominant character
of kinesthetic record. This freedom of
transition is indicated in the free use of
scale. Scale works emotionally, by associa-
tion, rather than descriptively. The differ-
ence between the Abstract Expressionist
use of scale and Tobey, for instance, is that
Tobey's scale is used as a local color to cer-
tain kinds of experiences, and even though
it is arbitrary, it has a fixed character in
creating a certain space of ecstasy, of mystic
immersion. In Tobey, scale and space give
a phenomenology, whereas in Abstract
Expressionism they are part of a cultural
history.
Scale in Abstract Expressionist pictures
is not a set metaphysical scale or a set nat-
ural scale or a definite scientific scaling up
or down of experience; it is a mixture
which is given dimension by the activity of
the artist: some work big, some work small
within a given area; yet this is not all there
is to it. Even if one approaches the paint-
ings without definite scale expectations,
one tends to vacillate between the desire to
see the small in big terms (still life orienta-
tion) or the vast brought down to scale
(landscape orientation). Abstract Expres-
sionists seem to rely on this switch-over
from outdoor to indoor scale and its
opposition in a cultivated jump of scale:
masses are built up by writing motions;
letters are blown up to act as areas; huge
brush strokes are huddled like objects in a
still-life fashion; wide tracts of color
thrusts are dwarfed by huge scribbled mes-
sages, as in Motherwell's Je t'aime (1955);
in an animated mosaic structure dots sud-
denly assume the scale of periods, as in
Tomlin's No. S (1952); details dwarf
grandly conceived passages; and grandiose
uniformity dribbles off into calligraphic
incoherence. Apparently here the artists
are giving chaotic tendencies (and devices
known from Dada) the utmost freedom, but
are holding them at bay by their constant
conversion into human gesture. Not vio-
lence of gesture is emphasized, but the ex-
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247
tent to which human gesture has to be
mobilized to master all categories in which
ambiguity and disorder can manifest itself.7
In this sense picture space becomes an
arena in which its autonomy is challenged
as a form of tyranny, just as its interpreta-
tion in terms of geometric perspective was
challenged by Mannerism, which articu-
lated the ambiguities picture space proffers,
apart from being a place where one space
conception can be demonstrated. The on-
slaught on a one-sided interpretation of the
picture space had already been attempted
in terms of the depth-two-dimensional
ambiguity by the Mannerists and by the
Cubists. All that was left to revalue was
unacknowledged scale consistency which
dominated all modern art except the later
Kandinsky and the later Monet. This was
done primarily by giving freedom of ges-
ture and of writing the upper hand. Yet
this is not a question of tapping new pos-
sibilities of beauty from calligraphy, even
though associations of elegance in writing
gestures, of style, creep in where rawness
and toughness of physical approach pre-
dominate.
While in Kandinsky's early abstractions
there is a predominant scale, that of land-
scape, in his later works his forms suggest
a wide scale of origin: from the minute to
the cosmic, from a whimsical, playful, con-
crete human activity to a conceptual order-
ing activity, geometric and dimensionless,
from a feeling for the pictorial elements as
humanly available and physically manipu-
lative objects to an attitude toward them as
absolute categories of feeling of constant
and unalterable dimension and value. Be-
cause in this later phase there is no intru-
sion of a "painterly handling," this free-
dom in respect to scale is most clearly and
most completely stated and has had such a
great impact as an abstract attitude. But
this freedom in respect to scale has, even
in Kandinsky, an illustrative value, even
if it is illustrative of "the freedoms of ab-
straction." In Abstract Expressionism it is
incorporated in the picture as material.
There this freedom in respect to scale is
explicitly the result of the painter's gesture,
and this, in effect, makes it less complete,
but the emphasis of the origin of this free-
 248
dom on the painter's gesture makes it more
direct.
The importance of the later Monet in
relation to Abstract Expressionism lies in
his articulating this freedom as incidental
to the painter's gesture. In his fervent at-
tempt to paint what he saw, Monet pushed
painterly action to such an extreme that
even though he did not depart from the
appearance of his objects, its articulation
in paint assumed a separate existence and
could be viewed in terms of the painterly
action and its scale. The value of brush
stroke as an element of a scale of action
becomes in Monet so insistent, so rich and
vivid, that it diverts our attention from the
scale of the objects depicted; hence the im-
pression that his pictures are enlargements,
that a change of scale has taken place, even
when this is not the case. It is irrelevant
here whether or not his brush strokes stand
for abbreviations of sensations; it is impor-
tant that he has made it possible to view
the brush strokes in their actual size and to
read their unifying action as a whole. We
can speak of visual curtain and veil of sen-
sation because of the consistency of his
painterly action, and the impression that
some of his pictures "contain no solid point
of reference" 8 is due to the split of our
attention between the brilliant surface as a
place in space and the rhythm of the ac-
tivity which we place in the artist. In
Monet's Water Lilies we find the strongest
statement prior to Pollock of the spatial
conflicts in modern painting: we see the
picture as an object, and our attention is
located on the surface; we view it as a work
of art, and our attention is lost in a spatial
recapitulation of the painter's actions-the
space which our awareness covers is also
in front of the picture. The oppositions in
which we evaluate Abstract Expressionist
pictures and which are manifested here
are not those of two-dimensional versus
three-dimensional depth values but be-
tween the scale of the painting as an object
and the scale of the painter's actions which
have different points of spatial reference
this side of the picture plane. Hence the
crowding we seem to experience and the
attribution of aggressiveness to Abstract
Expressionist pictures.
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RADKA ZAGOROFF DONNELL
The adverse attitude of Abstract Ex-
pressionists toward De Stael illustrates how
deep their break with consistent scale is.
Their lack of sympathy for his work is not
because he uses figures in his later style but
because he brings scale back into painting.
His case shows very clearly that because
figurative reference involves, above all,
consistent scale experience, it can be iso-
lated and made an abstract concern. The
abstract value of scale and its fundamental
alliance with figure experience are equally
dramatized in this work and account for its
classicism. His overt reference to those two
principles which have dominated painting
traditions up to now contrasts strongly
with Abstract Expressionist orientation.
To weigh the tensions within the picture
so as to favor a particular scale of land-
scape, of the figure, of still life has in tradi-
tional art been one of the most effective
and reliable ways of giving unity to the
picture. It is possible to see this as too easy
a victory, and Abstract Expressionists have
sought to show that no general, precon-
ceived, formal unifying principle should be
applied to create unity within the picture;
it has to come from the unity which each
particular artist establishes within his ex-
perience. We move between different spa-
tial frameworks and between different
functions at such a speed that we cannot
look to the continuity of spatial frameworks
to scale our experience for us. Man, as
Kepes says, ". . . measures and organizes
up, down, left, right, advance and recession
in a single system of which his body is the
center, and identified with the main direc-
tions of space." 9 To the fluidity of scale,
such as presents itself in Abstract Expres-
sionist pictures, is opposed the artist's ac-
tive and enlightened presence. This is what
is at stake in Abstract Expressionism-not
the endless elaboration of the quirks of
personality or a parody of vitality. For this
reason also, it is a mistake to see the size of
the canvas as an expression of illusions of
grandeur or as a reflection of "the size of
America as a continent";10 rather one
must allow the artist to conceive experi-
ence and its conflicts on a scale commen-
surate with his powers.
Space in Abstract Expressionism
1Herbert Read, A Concise History of Modern
Painting (New York, 1959), p. 100.
2Clement Greenberg, Art and Culture (Boston,
1961), p. 55.
Ibid., p. 70.
4W. M. Ivins, Art and Geometry (Cambridge,
1946), p. 8.
6 Frank O'Hara, Jackson Pollock (New York,
1959), pp. 28-29.
249
6Gyorgy Kepes, Language of Vision (Chicago,
1956).
7E. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion (New York,
1960), Bollingen Series XXXV, 5, 282.
8 William Seitz, Claude Monet, Seasons and
Moments (New York, 1960), p. 23.
9 Kepes, Language of Vision, p. 18.
o Bryan Robertson, Jackson Pollock (New York,
1960), p. 54.

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