THE VITAL CHSATIV3 ACT IK ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM

by

MANUEL D'WIGHT KESNE

A., Arkansas Polytechnic College, 1963

A MASTER'S THESIS
ubraitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree

MASTER OP ARTS

Department of Art
KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY Manhattan, Kansas
1966

Approved by:

lii

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION Scope and Source of the Writing The Artist's delation to Society and the World
THE VITAL CREATIVE ACT: STRUCK* LE RESULTING IN PRODUCTION

1 1

2
5 5 $
? 3 9 11

ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS FOR SUCCESS IN CREATIVE STRUGGLE Freedom. .......................... Courage*. Honesty. Sensitivity to Impulse Assimilated Formal Knowledge
CONCLUSION DISCUSSION OF THE PAINTINGS PRESENTED IN THE THESIS
PRESENTATION OF THE THESIS PAINTINGS
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
LITERATURE CITED

13
11*

16 33

34

INTRODUCTION
Scope and Source of
tiie

Writing

The greater part of this thesis deals with what occurs in

the creative process, with special and constant reference to Ab-

stract Expressionism's peculiar relation to and embodiment of

this process.

The primary insights evolved and impetus sus-

tained in writing this paper were derived from my own painting

and overall art-producing experience, including my reflections

thereupon.

am aware, however, of the fact that there are in-

numerable broad influences upon my thinking and personal inter-

pretations resulting from reading and disoussion which could not

possibly be cited specifically.

For various reasons,
I

have neither dwelt upon nor elabo-

rated extensively about why the artist acts as he does, whether

or not I could have done so successfully.

Among the more impor-

tant reasons for not going into a long discursive elaboration of

such topics as the artist'3 relation to his society, his culture

and his world is that the primary emphasis and weight of a thesis toward the granting of an advanced degree In a studio field
is carried by the work produced by the candidate in his studio.

Therefore, the written part of such a thesis should concern itself primarily with the considerations, conditions and/or proc-

esses in the production of the studio work.

I

would like to offer, however, in the remainder of this

I

Introduction, some ideas which

consider valid observations

upon the above-mentioned questions which are not dealt with in

the main body of the thesis.

The Artist's Relation to Society and the World

There is in our society a great "gap" or "cultural vacuum":this vaouum is the lack of control over one's own fate.
There

is no place to escape to and no way of effectively opposing the

sweeping but subtly legiti.nized (and therefore, in general, un-

questloningly accepted) exploitation, which today finds it3

greatest field of existence internationally.
exploit the small oountries.
The big countries

In addition to this, the rulers in

There

most countries deceive and exploit the populace thereof.

is a creeping but all-encompa3 singly effective thwarting of es-

sential freedom.
The artist is and should properly be regarded by society as
a hero, because insofar a3 he is an artist worthy of the name he

unrelentingly manifests the principle of freedom: the rejection

ever of establishments and the establishment of external and extraneous orders and rules.
The contemporary artist thus reacts

to the above-mentioned cultural gap to fill it through his work,

keeping alive the ideal and the exercise of freedom, even though
he has no political power to make the principle widespread.

A prime example of artists fulfilling this ultimately important role is in the movement that has come to be called

"A Cultural space-Time Approach to Art", p. am indebted to Professor Miller for the concept of "cultural vacuum" as well as for the general conception of art as occupying "cultural space-time", which is elaoorated upon later in this thesis.

AC. H. Miller,

11.

abstract Expressionism, whether or not it is tne conscious intent of any or all of these artists to function in this way.

This is not to say that this is the sole role or content of the

work of such giants in art as de Kooning, Pollock, Hofman, Kline

Still and Motherwell: but it is an important aspect of their

work that should not be overlooked.

For instance,

have never

seen anyone include the increasingly greater peril to the human

race as a whole since World War II (and the totally ineffective

position of the overwhelming majority of individual men

for*

re-

ducing that peril) as one of the factors in the development of

Abstract Expressionism at that time.

believe that it was.

Another and possibly broader motivation toward artistic

creation is suggested by Motherwell himself: and it is also one

which

find operative in my own impetus to paint.

One might

call this a feeling of alienation from the larger pulse of the

essential processes of the Cosmos.

of

It might be felt as a lack 2

intensity of existence.

In the words of Motherwell:

Whatever the source of this sense of being unwedded to the universe, X think that one's art is one's effort to wed oneself to the universe, to unify oneself through union....
I suppose that the art of far more ancient and "simple artists expressed something quite different, a feeling of already being at one with the world....

Nothing as drastic an Innovation as abstract art could have come into existence save as the consequence of a most profound, relentless, unquenchable need.
The need is for felt experience intense, immediate, direct, subtle, unified, warm, vivid, rhythmic.

Artist

Prank O'Hara, 3obert Motherwell , with .Selections from the 's Writings , p. i|5.

It goes without saying that when and if an artist already

has the feeling of being "wedded to the universe", he will still

feel the need to paint.

Even if he ha3 a genuinely religious

vision of the Oni verse, of his and all other things' "places"
"in" "it", he will realize tnat he can best glorify and extend

and celebrate existence by exercising freedom in an open-ended

creative prooess.
These and other possible broad drives to creation may be
sept in mind as the discussion of the creative process develops

in the body of the thesis.

THE VITAL CREATIVE ACT: STRUGGLE RESULTING IN PRODUCTION

A struggle, resulting from starting out from nothing, and

involving danger of failure (which is mortal to the artist, as

artist) is essential to a meaningful aot of creation.

For the abstract expressionist, this "meaningful act of creation", this struggle, is engaged in during the entire period of

creating a work.

This means that there is not in the process a

separation into, for example, making studies (which 13 where, in

such a case, the creative process would take place) and then executing one of these studies or combining them in the final work.
The artist must facs directly and deal immediately with contin-

gencies as they arise, father than systematically thinking out

ends and means in advance.

The vitality, the excitement of a

painting produced in such an existential struggle results from

the fact that the record of the struggle is all there, in the

"adversary", which the painter has more or lass successfully subjected to his will or resolved by attunin.3 himself to his im-

pulses

ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS FOR SUCCESS IH CREATIVE STRUGGLE

Freedom
When painting is approached witnout preconceptions, a type
of unavoidaole "freedom" is thru3t upon the serious artist.

The

setting of "problems" reduces this crippling freedom by giving a

starting point from which one can proceed, and sometimes a problem Is set before the artist approaches the canvas.
But the

emphasis in the type of creative struggle under consideration

here is upon the problem(s) arising out of and being solved
by-

gestures for which one has no conscious reasons.

The intelligent, sensitive, serious man eventually becomes

aware that even the categories of the mind, those so-needed

crutches, are unreal and rest on no solid and absolute basis.

Differentiations are creations of man and are relative in their

dependence, as everything in the universe is relative.
I

think

thus, but I might conceivably think in an exactly opposite manner.

I

am here only in relation to you or other objects: and

We are all in this

you and they have a similar status to mine.

together: and none of us has any position or starting place in

relation to the infinite.

It is only by starting somewhere that One accepts

one gets anywhere and precipitates consequences.

and uses the information provided by the senses and unavoidably

work3 within the framework of the way one's mind works: but the

artist of consequence is among those who look beyond this pat,

common sense world for a discovery or creation of something

which does not logically follow from what is now and is known.
The artist thus aware approaches his work without answers

in the way of "design principles" he will employ or in the way

of social or metaphysical "truths" which he can illustrate In

the work, and which may comfort him if his plastic experiment

doesn't work out.

Ho, he must succeedl

For it is In this act

and its product that he works out his reality, meaning and value.

Before the act there was a crutchless, groundless, crippling, in-

finite freedom.

Move, act, and there is reality and commitment

In the aot and in Its record on the canvaa

reality and an or-

der of things wnich cannot be ruined or destroyed by subsequent

dullness, weakness, dishonesty, injustice or corruption, except
that the work be physically destroyed without ever being 3een.
iiven if it is

true, as Nietzsche insists, that all meaning-

ful ani systematic interpretations or derivations of tne Cosmos

are lies, one should note well that for Nietzsche, art (the

grandest of lies) is considered as a higher value than the truth,

which equals Nihilism. ^

The implication here is that art, the

^reat "yea-sayer", results In a more desirable existence than

Nihilism, whioh is an unhappy and unproductive state of being.

Whether or not one agrees with Nietzsche's metaphysics, the

struggle remains and retains its significance.
One oould as

easily say that

true insight into reality is a cause for great

joy, and that it is through the creation of art that the artist

discovers the undifferentiated serenity of the all.

be right,

Whoever may

both theories admit the obvious fact that the creation

of meaningful art is productive of joy for the artist as well as

for his sympathetic public.

Courage
It becomes obvious that given the above-oonsl iered type of

awareness of freedom (as Sartre would have it, a condemnation to

freedom), a considerable degree of courage would often be neces-

sary to sustain an individual who habitually engaged in an

Melvin Racier, ed., A Modern Book of Pathetics , pp. 125-26.

activity which placed nim in situations where he had absolutely

nothing to lean upon except his own act and faith,
alternative theory to Nietzsche's which
I

liven in the

indicate above, one

still never knows whether he can estaolish rapport or unity with

tne cosmic gesture.^"

While every act, every gesture, is part of

the self -creating whole, the individual self's realization of

thi3 involves a constant struggle,

liven

though the hand of

3hiva is raised, it takes courage to have no fear.

Honesty
But just any act whatsoever is not only insufficient but

may

oe

more detrimental to one's development, to one's unfolding

Phis ia what makes honescy,
The

reality, than doing nothing at all.

of the most unrelenting and thoroughgoing sort, essential.

act must be the culmination of an impulse or perceived solution

which is new, genuine and honest.

ness result.

Otherwise, cliches and trite-

And unless one is totally insensitive to personal

honesty, one will suffer self -punishment when canned solutions

are employed. One learns nothing from repeating one's old an-

swers or mannerisms,

uoreover, whether or not one keeps himself

honest, it is likely that the ring of insincerity and facility

will be (or become) apparent to perceptive viewers, when and if
the artist does not face himself, the work and the problem in an

open-ended and honest manner.

Of course, it would be wrong to

^Alan W. Watts, The Joyous Cosmology , p. 72. I am indebted to Mr. Watts for the notion of all existence as gesture.

hold that

ju3t;

anyone sight easily see the difference between

vital, original painting and that which is hackneyed and clicheridden.

TLiis

point is perhaps best illustrated by another se-

lection from the writings of Robert Motherwell:

judgments of painting are I believe that painters first ethical, then aesthetic, the aesthetic judgments flowing from an ethical context....
1

...One has to have an intimate acquaintance with the language of contemporary painting to be able to see the real beajties of it; _to 3ee the a tuicai i^ac.ground is .even I t is a question of consciousness . more difficult .

Without ethical consciousness, a painter is only a decorator, without ethical consciousness, the audience is only sensual, one of aesthetes.
part, I have never met a man or experienced a that I respected without a sense of fresnne3s emanating from either. A moral beauty of modern art, which has led it inevitably and dialectical!/ to the new, is its inability to stand that which is musty and stale. o wonder Marcel Duchamp says he is so grateful to anyone who can show him something newl No wonder those who have a stake in the old and stale hate the newl What an ultimate confrontation!

For

ray

wotk of art

r i<

...To create is not to repeat, but to discover, critically and radically and freshly.

Sensitivity to Impulse
So, one must be very aware of the truth of one's inner

workings and of one's unoontrived impulses in order to let them

come through without being twisted to fit old answers or dead-

ened by being forced through old mannerisms.

For, though It may

seem paradoxical, it is only by cultivating this close attention

'My

Frank Q'Hara, 0. oit., p. underlining.

p'3.

10

to one's Inmost lnsides that one can best communicate with the

external world and with one's fellow man.

The artist must let

rush and run and splash or float and seep and flow onto the canvas his deepest and most direct reactions to those submerged and

nebulous but all-influencing feelings, desires, impulses and unutterables wnich lie at the core of us all.
The "impulse", as I use the word, can be toward serenity,

quietude, contemplation and harmony as well as toward violence,

movement, impetuosity and clash.
But in either case, the vital-

ity and significance of its manifestations will depend upon the

freshness and appropriateness of those manifestations.

In a metaphysical consideration of the impulse, it can (as hinted at earlier) be seen as an extension of universal gesture,

with the Individual artist as an unusually active vehicle of its

manifestation.
The artist actually extends reality, the uni-

verse, when as the expression of an impulse he brings Into being

through his "manipulation of sensuous materials", "a series of

intrinsically interesting events , or closely knit families of events, which tend to perpetuate themselves . . ."?

And even if

these productions have relatively little self -perpetuating power

the totality of being could not possibly be the same thence.
I

believe, however, that Professor Miller is right in maintaining

that the relative greatness of works of art depends upon the a-

mount of "cultural space-time" they occupy; or in another sense,

G. H. Miller, 0. cit., p. 10.

11

the amount of reality or existence they contribute.

Artistic

movements and Individual oeuvre3 proceed in a very obviously di-

alectical manner when they are a direct or a conscious reaction

to another movement or oeuvre .

But these artists (as well as

those who proceed along their own paths, oolivious of what others do) serve to expand the univer3e.

Movements and individual

artists who are successful and take their places in the order of

things tend to come to seem the way or direction in which to

move.
The reaction of others into previously unseen manifesta-

tions serves to show that the possibilities are limitless, infi-

nite .

Assimilated Formal Knowledge

The modern arti3t, and pre-eminently the abstract expres-

sionist, approaches his work without preconceptions, denying re-

liance upon previous methods of proceeding and of resolving the

work, except insofar as they seem to arise out of t hi a situation.
It seems to me that the only constant sine qua non of a success-

ful (not necessarily a highly significant) work is whether it is

somehow "digestible'' .

To be vital, artistic work must incorpo-

rate the new, tnat which is unlike what already exists and is
known: but in order to be experienced without inordinate diffi-

culty, and thus appreciated (which is the life of works of art),

Ihope that I am not here twisting Professor Miller's meaning to the point of unrecognizabillty, and that he will not interpret me as making a vitali3t of him. His did seem a succinct and appropriate expression for the point I was trying to make.

12

the work mast be digestible or apprehendable as a whole.

And

this ability to be apprehended as a whole inevitably requires

something that can at least retrospectively be called order.

The vital impulses (made so much of thus far) in their

rightness, their appropriateness, at least to some extent grow

out of the artist'
3

total life experiences, an important part of

which might be called "assimilated formal knowledge": the formal

knowledge of his specific discipline.
Soine

might insist that the more important; impulses are from

the universe at large, and that the important artist is that

person who, knowing and being skilled in an artistic discipline,

i3 peculiarly receptive, through his inner world, to the cosmic

gesture.

But even one who held suoh a theory could not,

think,

avoid the importance of the artist's past experience and present

situation.

And regardless of the source of the preponderance of im-

pulse-generation, in vital work the formal knowledge is not simply applied over the impulse or the record left oehind by the
impulse.
It is not an essentially rational process of addition

and subtraction (many think It is, among them the horde of mediocre abstract painters): but rather it requires being able to tune to the point where the irrational impulse comes out and is

manifested in a visually "digestible" form.

:

There is a Diony-

slan-Apollonian lnterplay-counterplay q but for alive and fresh

work, the majority of the dialog must take place on a very deep

Melvin Hader, 0. cit .

p. 120.

13

and basic level.

Now the artist, like everyone else, uses his nationality in

innumerable ways.

But in the essential part of the creative act

he must rely upon non-rational means to solutions.

Attesting to

this fact is Hans Hofmann, an outstanding member of the aostraot

expressionist movement:^
"There are 30,000 decisions in a painting" he says, "and each one by intuition."
...There are 30,000 decisions, and each one is so intricate that if an artist tries to pluck his answers out of Season, he will be paralyzed by possibilities. The choice must ue made through instinct highly trained, widely cultivated, but as "blind" as a Zen archer's aim.

Hofmann seems an especially fitting personage upon whom to

conclude the discussion of "requirements for success in creative

struggle"; he who knew so much of structure and yet who, as the

years progressed, approached painting more and more freely; and
who, until his death this year at almost eighty-six, was honest-

ly and courageously doing loving battle and brilliantly winning

the creative struggle.

COjSCLOSIOH
The more general of the above observations apply, I believe,

to the core of the creative process (properly so called) in all

times and places.

But the concentrated emphasis upon the strug-

gle and upon impulse in abstract expressionism is due to the

fact that it as an art movement has made this very process

^Thomas

B. Hess,

"The Mystery of Hans Hofmann", Art News ,

February 1965, pp. 39, 55.

Ik

itself a major part of its subject matter.

DISCUSSION OF THE PAINTIHGS P RESENTS D

IJf

THE THESIS

As Indicated by the foregoing discussion,

seldom came to

the canvas with a preconceived notion of what

would do in the

session, except for the times when there were certain (usually)

nebulous groups of ideas or obsessions wnich

wanted to explore.

Sometimes there was

certain type of color or form idea,

I

provoked by nature or art that

had become aware of.

If and

when such a beginning was employed, the previous conscious visualization of the idea was inevitably altered and sometimes almost totally left behind as the painting and
(the painting s) own life.
1

developed its

Often, however, there was an even more vague desire to release impulses of a more general nature through a certain type
(for example, violent and uncontrolled) of gesture.

In a case or two, as

faced the canvas, an image appeared

cefore me, coupled with a broad feeling or cluster of feelings

associated with it.

Probably most often, there was simply a vague feeling of a

need or desire to paint; with colors and a surface to paint on,

something always suggested itself.

for the process elaborated aoove.

Thus a beginning occurred

In many cases, the extended impulse that lasted through a

painting session (or series of sessions) resulted In a work that
was not (for one reason or another) satisfactory.

In some such

cases, a consciously thought out addition or subtraction or an

15

irrationally motivated alteration or series of alterations suc-

cessfully completed the work.

In a large number of these in-

stances, however, the general impulse or rapport could not be

ro-established, and the canvas was then approached in

different impulse framework.

new and

In this latter type of case, the

nexv

canvas was treated as though it were a

one.

11

Whatever may or may not be ita broader implications, during

a good painting session there was a sense of eonmunion,

of being

outside of or larger than oneself.

And the more meaningful cul-

minations of works seemed to come from elsewhere, as if by "magic".

Whether this was from mind at large, the subconscious, the

association-of -ideas function of the imagination, a fantastically rapid and complioatedly enthymemic logical process or a com-

bination of some or all of these,

cannot say.

can only say

that there appeared solutions which were (at least for me) ex-

citing and meaningful and which seemed new.

It was approached as a new canvas, that is, excepting the obvious and acknowledged fact that it was not; that there were already colors, Images and ao forth present which would very likely Influence what was put down in the new session, and that any areas not painted anew would be not white and quiet, out of the color and character of the previous work.

PRSSSNTATION OP THE THESIS PAINTIMGS

PL&T3 II

"High"
(oil on canvas, 28x28)

20

PLATE IV

"Ghost of the Medicine Shield"

(oil on canvas,
ii.8x30)

PLATE

"The Red, White and Black"

(oil on canvas, k2xk2)

2k

PLATE VII

"St Pipe scape"

(oil on canvas, 30x30)

28

Q
M M M
O

1
CO

at

> o
4

u O
i

|H H

30

PLATE IX

"Dream of aa Eloquent Soream"

(oil on oanva3,
2l\x2l)

32

33

ACKNOWIDGMENT
Grateful acknowledgment and appreciation are due to Mr. Gerald w. Deibler of the apartment of Art for his invaluable as-

sistance in the preparation of this candidate and this thesis.

Gratitude is also heresy expressed to Joseph Fairbanks for

the "candidate at work" study {Plate I), and to John Lietzen for the black and white reproductions of the thesis paintings.

34

LITERATURE CITED
Hess, Thomas B. "The Mystery of Hans Hofmann." Art News. New York: Newsweek, Inc., February 1965.
i-iiller,

C. H "A Cultural Space-Time Approach to Art." Unpublished essay, delivered at the annual Taos, New Mexico, Sumne." Aesthetics Seminar, June 1965

Bitxsobut 4 Friedrioh. ''The Will to Power in Art." A Modern Sook of Ssthetioa . Edited by Melvin Rader. New York: Holt, Rine-

hart and Winston, 1962.

O'Hara, Prank and Motherwell, RoDert. Rooert riot her we 11, with Selections from the Artist 3 Writing s. New fork: Museum of Modern Art, 1955.
1

datts, Alan V The Joyous Go3,iiOlo^y . New York: ^ ant neon iiooks, 1962.

THE VITAL CREATIVE ACT IN ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM

by

MANUEL DWIGHT KEENE

A., Arkansas Polytechnic College, 1963

AN A3STRACT OF A MASTER'S THESIS

ubmitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree

MASTER OF ARTS
Department of Art

KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY Manhattan, Kansas

1966

do not deal extensively with why a painter paints, or

with the artist's relation to society, oecajse the main emphasis

in the thesis conplex is upon the paintings presented.
The writ-

ing is drawn primarily from my own personal experience and therefore is not to any great extent historical, even in the sense of

contemporary art history.

observations
ate.
or.

In the Introduction, however, a few

the artist's role and motivations seem appropri-

Consciously or unconsciously, the artist functions to en

a

extent that few others do as

preserver of freedom.

5ut a more

general, broad and deep pressure seems to motivate most artists

toward involvement in creative production.

For many, this pres-

sure is their feeling of alienation from essential reality or

the feeling that ordinary experience is not intense and meaning-

ful enough.

But even if the artist feels at one with all things

he can still be motivated toward producing art in order to cele-

brate and extend life.

In the essential part of the meaningful creative process,

there is a struggle from the nothing to the something.

For the
char-

abstract expressionist this struggle has

a lif e-and-death

acter, because he not only eschews previous studies and sketches

but also avoids preconceptions about design principles,

further

be employs a minimum amount of rational ends-and-means typa of

thinking, relying upon his impulses or intuition for beginnings,

conclusions and most of that which occurs inbetwasn.

gle goes on throughout the painting process.

The strug-

An awareness of absolute freedom is both nsoessary and a

handicap, because it requires the courage to act without any

ultima ta reason.

But there is no learning or development in suOne must be intensely aware of

perfluous and meaningless acts.

and sensitive to his impulses and must let them come out in the

work directly, freshly and honestly,

if one has enougn experi-

ence (especially art experience), and if he tunes himself deeply

and finely enough 30 chat to a large extent the impulses are pro-

voked in terms of that art experience, baen the manifestations

of tnose impulses will be both visually digestible and fresh.

If the artist thus tuned is a man who also feels strongly about;

life,

the work can unen become significant.

The paintings presented are for the most part the result of

approaching the canvas with a very open artistic attitude, but

oringing to it at the same time many of the artist's fse lings

and thoughts about the world, life and himself.

This combina-

tion usually provokes some kind of action bringing togetner

paint and canvas.

This everpresent situation suosequently be-

comes an important part of the subject matter in the paintings.

Realizations or culminations of paintings very often 3eem to

just "present" theraselves and be known to "feel" right, without

having oeen consciously or rationally thought out.