The non-geometric abstract art style known as tachisme, which emerged in Europe in the 1940s and 1950s, is characterised by haphazard brushstrokes, drips, and scribble-like patterns. Tachisme served as the European version of abstract expressionism in the United States. The word "tache" is a French word that means a stain or splash, such as one made by paint. The critic Pierre Guéguen is typically credited with coining the phrase to describe these post-war developments in 1951. However, the critic Félix Fénéon used it to characterise the impressionist method in 1889, and the artist Maurice Denis used it once more to refer to the fauve painters in 1909.
Tacisme and art informel are essentially interchangeable terms.
The French abstract painting movement known as tachisme, often spelt as tachism and deriving from the term tache, which means stain, gained popularity in the 1940s and 1950s. According to legend, the phrase was initially used to describe the movement in 1951.Although there are aesthetic differences—American abstract expressionism tended to be more "aggressively raw" than tachisme—it is sometimes seen as the European response to and analogue to abstract expressionism.It was a component of the greater Art Informel (or Informel) postwar trend, which abandoned geometric abstraction in favour of a more instinctive style of expression akin to action painting. Abstraction lyrique, which is connected to American Lyrical Abstraction, is another name for tachism. Tachisme shares a connection with COBRA and the Gutai group from Japan.
After World War II, Tachisme, the European equivalent of American abstract expressionism, was frequently referred to as "School of Paris." Among others, prominent proponents were Wols, Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Soulages, Nicolas de Stael, Hans Hartung, Gérard Schneider, Serge Poliakoff, Georges Mathieu, and Jean Messagier. According to Chilvers, the term "tachisme" "was first used in this sense in about 1951 (the French critics Charles Estienne and Pierre Guéguen have each been credited with coining it) and it was given wide currency by [French critic and painter] Michel Tapié in his book Un Art autre (1952)." Tachisme, which emerged as a response to Cubism, is characterised by haphazard brushstrokes, paint that drips and oozes right from the tube, and occasionally writing that has calligraphic overtones.
Tachisme shares a close relationship with Informalism, also known as Art Informel, which, in the context of French art criticism in the 1950s, referred to "a lack or absence of form itself"—non-formal or un-form-ulated—rather than merely a simple reduction of formality or formalness. work Informel was more than just a casual, loose, or relaxed attitude to creating work; it was about the absence of preconceived structure, notion, or method (sans cérémonie).
Though it is generally misunderstood, tachisme was one of the most vibrant and intriguing art movements to appear in the middle of the 20th century. Tachisme is typically referred to as the French equivalent of Abstract Expressionism by writers and historians due to what they perceive as visual similarities between the two movements and because both art movements appeared to emerge, or at least receive names, around the same time, in the early 1950s. But such a cursory evaluation appears to me to belittle the Tachisme-affiliated artists and to fundamentally misrepresent the diversity and intent of their output.
If not simply the French translation of an American art movement, what is Tachisme? It might not be so simple to state.
Although not always the case, paintings connected with Tachisme frequently feature lyrical compositions, organic, dynamic brushstrokes, and lack of recognisable structures. Tachisme's general lack of distinguishable shapes is, however, so pervasive that it led to Tachisme's association with the more expansive European Post-War trend known as "Art Informel." The word informel meant weak in form, not casual. The French term "tache," which means "stain," as in a substance that has been spilled and splattered across a surface, is the root of the word "tachisme."
One more reason Tachisme has been mistakenly referred to as the French equivalent of Abstract Expressionism is that some painters associated with the movement, like Georges Mathieu, developed visual languages that share a lot in common with splotches of paint. But it seems to me that it would be preferable to truly try to analyse Tachisme according to the trends and approaches that are specific to it rather than dismissing it as an instance of Europeans emulating Americans. When properly considered, tachisme is a distinct aesthetic perspective with origins deeply rooted in Europe, at least as far back as the first decades of the 20th century.
Tacisme and art informel are essentially interchangeable terms.
Roots:
Visually, abstract painting has always leaned towards two seemingly opposing aesthetic positions: the geometric and the lyrical, to put it in perhaps oversimplistic words. Kazimir Malevich's "Black Square" (1915) is the ideal early example of geometric abstraction. Wassily Kandinsky's "Composition VII" (1913) is the ideal example of its lyrical opposition. Both perspectives have existed since the beginning of visual art, and at any given time, both types of abstraction are being explored by artists. There are also many artists whose aesthetic positions combine the two, resulting in a spectrum with an unlimited number of in-between points.
However, even when it comes to two artists who are said to follow one extreme or the other, things like intent, method, and medium distinguish the kind of work they produce. For instance, Donald Judd and Ellsworth Kelly used geometric shapes differently than Kazimir Malevich did.
Tacisme and art informel are essentially interchangeable terms.
Like the artists linked with Tachisme, we can believe that Wassily Kandinsky created lyrical abstract art for motives that were distinct from those of the Abstract Expressionists. Wassily Kandinsky sought out the visual equivalent of music via poetic abstraction. In order to deal with their tension and worry, Abstract Expressionists focused more on using their subconscious mind as a creative outlet. They were interested in psychotherapy, and as a result, their art expanded from that way of thinking and was very emotional and personal. Tachisme, which contains intuitive, organic, and gestural signs, has little to do with psychotherapy and emotional drama but shares visual characteristics with both Abstract Expressionism and Kandinsky.
Based on the art, I would say that it is more concerned with physicality, materiality, similarities, and the unprocessed manifestation of natural energy within a visual field.
Definition of Tacisme: Hans Hartung is one of the early painters connected to Tachisme. Long, sharply slanted, linear marks characterise his distinctive artistic position. His artwork frequently resembles lines etched into the sand or the scars left by whipping. These paintings were being created by Hartung as early as the 1930s. Karel Appel of the CoBrA group is another artist connected to Tachisme. Appel adopted a primitive aesthetic that resembled little children's drawings. His creations were impulsive, frivolous, and raw. Next, is Georges Mathieu, whose work I indicated had a similar aesthetic to paint splatters.
His creations, however, have nothing in common with the paint-splattering Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock. Mathieu was more deliberate, even conventional, in his compositional choices and avoided the "all-over" manner attributed to Pollock. Even today, Pierre Soulages, one of the most well-known Tachisme-related painters, is still alive. His Tachisme-era art is calligraphic and powerful, based in colour and line, and built on an examination of gesture and brushstroke.
Tachisme is linked to dozens of additional artists in addition to those I just named. They are noted for a wide variety of techniques and aesthetics and come from all over the world. We must thus go past appearances and consider what, if anything, these various artists have in common if we are to have any chance of identifying what Tachisme genuinely is. The solution, in my opinion, has something to do with nature. Some people, like Appel or Jean Dubuffet, gave the original, primal nature of humans a lot of thought. Others, such as Alberto Burri, were interested in the forces of nature and how it arranges itself in space.
Others, including Jean-Paul Riopelle and Sam Francis, were worried about how they could use their own acts to manifest the forces of nature. Artists like WOLS and Antoni Tàpies, meantime, were more intrigued with exposing human nature. These artists all used direct, hands-on manipulations of their mediums to abstractly communicate their fascination with nature. That proves to me that Tachisme is in no way comparable to Abstract Expressionism in France. It is a distinctive position that fully expresses the meaning of its source term; similar to a stain, it is founded on physical laws of nature like gravity and motion as well as the straightforward materiality of paint.