When reading this research point, I didn’t think that I had ever come across anything of tachisme, and yet when I began researching artists I knew I had seen work like it, but never a particular artist. For this research point, I found three artists of the tachisme and abstract expressionism movement, two that I am fond of, one not so much.
The artist’s work who does not appeal to my tastes is Hanz Hartung. When researching the German- French artist, I appreciated his random brush strokes and the compositions and patterns he created that also produced a movement and flexibility, but I just didn’t like his colour choices or the paintings as a whole. Hartung’s work does show spontaneity and accidental marks, but I couldn’t get to grips with his style as a whole.
The second artist whose work I am much more fond of is Pierre Soulages. With his bold strokes with such intention and strength, Soulages creates striking slashes of paint mixed with autumnal and miserable colours that work well together. One aspect that I admire, is the choice of background colours and the gradient towards the edge and the darkness that surrounds the whole composition. With the lighter shades towards the middle of his pieces, Soulages manages to frame his own work within the actual painting which helps the firm, bold strokes and stripes come forward into the foreground.
The last artist that I want to mention and also admire is the American artist Franz Kline, whose work shows a strong resemblance to Pierre Soulages. Even though there is not a presence of colour in his work, Kline creates a genuine and solid composition of line and form which leaps from the bland, bare grey white background. With the slight difference in the thickness of lines, Kline still creates strong strokes, but also a variety of line and form which I believe helps the pieces look more complex and thought out, compared to Hanz Hartung.
https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/3979
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/hans-hartung-1251
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