Discuss the Ways in which the Terms Freedom, Risk and Individuality Essay

Discuss the Ways in which the Terms Freedom, Risk and Individuality were Invoked by post-WWII American Artists and Critics - Essay Example Thus, from 1940s American artists developed something unique which illustrated the American political, economic and social forms of expression. Americans in general also became aware of an increase in crimes, which the mass media, represented by photographers, filmmakers and journalists, revealed to them. They came to know that ideas and feelings could be better expressed through art forms and abstract expressionism. Thus, the concept of abstract expressionism evolved, which marked the turning point in American art history. So far it relates to abstract expressionism in painting, it uses a means where in the artists apply paint rapidly on huge canvasses and express their feelings, emotions and gestures in a non geometric form. After the World War II, American artists have remained engrossed in the development of abstract art. Significant among such artists are Robert Motherwell, Norman Lewis and Mark Rothko who have contributed greatly to the development of the technique of abstract expressionism. It is mainly characterized by eminent factors. ... Abstract expressionists always make it a point to portray rich meanings and their works are a combination of both fluid washes as well as violent strokes of paint. â€Å"Rothko's fluid washes of paint, for example, stand in contrast to De Kooning's energetic, nearly violent brushstrokes. Yet both artists believed strongly in the ability of art to evoke powerful and meaningful emotions in the viewer† (Post World War II par. 3). It appears to a viewer that the painting is a chance painting or is simply an accident painting but such type of paintings is highly planned and has rich meanings, boiling beneath the surface, which the painter has visualized and intends to communicate to the world. Mark Rothko’s sienna, orange and black on dark brown and browns over dark are popular canvases. The USA’s experience in the World War II demonstrates the conflict which existed between the American values and the geopolitical exigencies. President Franklin D Roosevelt has delive red the famous ‘four freedom’ address where people possess certain freedom such as the freedom to speech, worship, want and the right to remain free from fear. Norman Rockwell, another eminent abstract expressionist painter, has immortalized the concept of four freedoms in a series of paintings in the Saturday Evening Post. â€Å"Works representing emancipated blacks from an album of photographs taken by the war artist James Taylor reveal an indeterminate, still somewhat displaced status for those recently freed by the Union Army† (Kromm & Bakewell 240). Photographs, especially made and dispersed by antislavery societies in order to celebrate the victorious escapes of slaves by contrast, raised the performance and unusual