Lyrical Abstraction is an American
abstract art movement that emerged in
New York City,
Los Angeles,
Washington, DC, and then
Toronto and
London during the
1960s -
1970s. Characterized by intuitive and loose paint handling, spontaneous expression, illusionist space, acrylic staining, process, occasional imagery, and other painterly and newer technological techniques. Lyrical Abstraction led the way away from
minimalism in painting and toward a new freer
expressionism. Painters who directly reacted against the predominating
Formalist,
Minimalist, and
Pop Art and
Geometric abstraction styles of the 1960s, turned to new, experimental, loose, painterly, expressive, pictorial and abstract painting styles. Many of them had been Minimalists, working with various monochromatic, geometric styles, and whose paintings publicly evolved into new abstract painterly motifs. American Lyrical Abstraction is related in spirit to
Abstract Expressionism,
Color Field painting and
European Tachisme of the 1940s and 1950s as well.
Tachisme refers to the French style of abstract painting current in the 1945 -1960 period. Very close to
Art Informel, it presents the European equivalent to
Abstract Expressionism.
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