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Abstract Expressionism　　Abstract expressionism was the name for an artistic movement that emerged in the USA during the 1950s. It was also known as the New York School since most of the important artists lived there, at least for a time. During World War II many influential artists had fled the fighting and persecution of Europe and ended up in New York. The Abstract Expressionist group were made up of artists who had either come from Europe or who were directly influenced by the styles and techniques of those who had.　　Abstract Expressionism is a term used for art that uses elements of Expressionism in an abstract way. They were also influenced by Surrealism. Expressionist artists used symbols and particular styles of painting to express feelings or emotions. Surrealists tried to express the subconscious by using through the actual process of painting. The physical property of paint (what it was like) was what was important. The style and the subject (what the painting was of) had lost all significance.　　The recognition of the Abstract Expressionists by the art world meant that for the first time the USA became known as an important force in avant-garde art. The term avant-garde is often used in art, and is used to describe anything radically new or different. The Abstract Expressionists fitted this description perfectly. For the first time it was the physical act of painting that was important rather than the end product.　　The New York School was not, in the strictest sense, an artistic movement. The Abstract Expressionists included artists who had each developed their own individual styles. But there were enough similarities in the way they thought about and approached painting that gradually the group became known as the Abstract Expressionists.　　Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner and Franz Kline all became recognized for a technique called action painting. This was where spontaneous physical movement and gestures were used to produce paintings. The term action painting was originally used by the art critic Harold Rosenberg. He was referring to Jackson Pollock, who became famous for his drip paintings. Pollock used a revolutionary new technique, which involved dripping, pouring or squirting the paint from syringes directly onto the canvases. We now use the term action painting in a wider sense to refer to any technique of making a painting with energetic and spontaneous application of paint.　　Other artists who also fall under the title of Abstract Expressionists include Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Clyfford Still. These artists invented a softer, calmer technique where paint is applied with brushes in large areas, or fields, of color covers the whole picture surface. This technique became known as color field painting.　　Both the action and color field painters shared methods and ideals. Paint is applied in bold, simple brushstrokes, dribbles or splashes, with blocks of color to make the maximum visual impact. The huge physical size of the paintings matched the artists’ grand philosophical ideas.　　Abstract Expressionists all shared a philosophy about painting. Paintings were a search for truth, or the hidden meaning of life. The artists tried to find a way of painting that did not have to follow any particular style or school ofart. This way people would not associate the painting with anything else. They would just look at it as a painting and form their own ideas of what it meant.