What Is Lyrical Abstraction

Lyrical abstraction is not a formal specific school of art.

What is lyrical abstraction. Other sources sustain that it was jean jose marchand and georges mathieu who first used the term abstraction lyrique in 1947 in paris. The american art collector larry aldrich used the term in 1969 to define the nature of various works he had recently collected that he felt signaled a return to personal expression and experimentation following minimalism. Lyrical abstraction is a type of freewheeling abstract painting that emerged in the mid 1960s when abstract painters returned to various forms of painterly pictorial expressionism with a predominate focus on process gestalt and repetitive compositional strategies in general. It is a term art critics have invented to differentiate abstract works which present ideation and imagery or imagery potentials depending on the viewers ability to discern them versus those with no relation to the natural world or pictorial allusion.

The french artist and art theorist georges mathieu 1921 2012 was one of the fathers of lyrical abstraction. Lyrical abstraction a 20th century style of painting that some people would argue is virtually identical to that of abstract expressionism. Lyrical abstraction is a seemingly self defining term and yet for generations its origin and meaning have been debated. What is lyrical abstraction.

Lyrical abstraction may also be used to describe two distinct but related trends in the aftermath of second world war modernist artwork painting in specific. Descriptive term that characterizes abstract painting type that has a close relationship with abstract expressionism and has been in use from 1940s to date. Lyrical abstraction lyrical abstraction in painting is an opening to personal expression.