The sublime and the Abstract Expressionism

Abstract

This paper develops two hypotheses about the American Abstract Expressionism. The first, based on the ideas from Clement Greenberg, is that this movement can be considered the pinnacle of modernism. The second, based on considerations from Robert Rosenblum and Jean-François Lyotard, is that the abstract expressionist painters explored an aesthetic of the sublime. Therefore, they reformulate a traditional aesthetic category, which had already been the subject of the romantic figurative painting. The main reference for this linkage between Abstract Expressionism and the sublime is the work of Barnett Newman.