Lyrical Abstraction
(1945 -1960)

   Lyrical Abstraction is a French style of abstract painting current in the 1945 -1960. Very close to Art Informel, presents the European equivalent to Abstract Expressionism. The name Tachisme is sometimes used to describe the style.

   In 1947 the painter Georges Mathieu organized the exhibition "Abstraction lyrique" in Paris. The term that Mathieu chose for the exhibition, pointing clearly to the gap separating "cold" geometric abstraction from a "hot" organic and lyrical form of abstraction. Works by Wols, Hartung and Riopelle were exhibited.

   Wols produced painstaking, teeming graphic work that showed the influence of his contacts with the French Surrealists. Painting for Hartung meant streaking, hatching and brushing until the canvas was thoroughly invaded. He hid, disguised and erased an image until all that was left were the deletions. For Riopelle the picture itself involved no preconceived ideas. Painting was an instinctual act that let the work loom and emerge and decide for itself what its form would be.

   When Mathieu resolved to exhibit the works of these painters, he incorporated his own approach as an artist, which was at once calligraphic and impulsive, within a European trend inspired by Surrealist automatism and the psychology of the unconscious.

   Soulages, Atlan and Degottex were all very different from each other, formally speaking, but they can be regarded as belonging to this movement with its ill-defined outlines, which was developing at the very same time as American Abstract Expressionism. The US abstract painter Sam Francis was greatly influenced by the style.