Tachism

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Term often used interchangeably with ART INFORMEL or Lyrical Abstraction and applied to the movement in abstract art that flourished in Europe, especially in France, in the late 1940s and 1950s. As early as 1899 F?lix F?n?on referred to the work of the Impressionists as 'tachiste' to distinguish it from the more studied technique of the Neo-Impressionists, and in 1909 Maurice Denis applied the term to Fauvism, but in its narrower sense it came into use only in the 1950s: the French writer Pierre Gu?gan spoke of Tachist painting in 1951, while another French writer, Charles Estienne, set a precedent in 1954 for the application of the term to the technique employed by certain artists involved with Art informel. Derived from the French word signifying a blot, stain or mark, the term emphasizes the spontaneous gestural quality that characterizes much of this work. It thus refers more specifically to the branch of Art informel closest in spirit and technique to AUTOMATISM, in that the painted marks are presented as virtually unmediated by the conscious mind, and as a direct counterpart to the work of American Abstract Expressionists such as Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline and Sam Francis. Though often used more generally, thus defined the term best describes the work of artists such as Hans Hartung (for illustration see ART INFORMEL), Wols (for illustration see WOLS), Georges Mathieu, Henri Michaux and Pierre Soulages. Mathieu, for instance, adopted a gestural, calligraphic style in works such as Capetians Everywhere (1954; Paris, Pompidou; for illustration see MATHIEU, GEORGES). By contrast other painters associated with Art informel, for example Jean Bazaine, Alfred Manessier and Serge Poliakoff, favoured a more controlled approach both in their composition and in their use of colour.

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