COLOR FIELD OR ACTION PAINTING?

In the past art historians largely divided Abstract Expression into two subsections. The first is known as “action painting”—a term coined by US art critic Harold Rosenberg in 1952. Action painting, whose exponents included Pollock as well as de Kooning and Franz Kline, was characterized by a focus on painting as a dynamic act of creation. In opposition was what critic Clement Greenberg described as “color field” painting. This approach was characterized by large expanses of more flatly applied color, and exemplified by the likes of Rothko, Clyfford Still, and Barnett Newman.