ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM — POLLOCK DE KOONING ACTION

VISUAL STYLE: Abstract Expressionism — Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline. Paint as action. The gesture of the body recorded in pigment. Scale that overwhelms. The canvas as arena.

COLOUR PALETTE: Determined by mood and gesture. Pollock — industrial enamel colours poured and dripped: black, white, aluminium, with intrusions of yellow and red. De Kooning — flesh tones, violent pink, slashing black. Kline — black on white, architectural and absolute.

MARK-MAKING: The defining quality is the visible gesture — drip tracks recording the arc of the arm, brushstrokes that show the speed and weight of the hand. The process is present in every mark.

SCALE: Compositions that have no single focal point, no hierarchy of importance. The eye moves continuously without rest.

TEXTURE: Paint builds up in impasto — thick ridges of pigment. The surface has physical depth — not a window into a scene but an object in the world.

COMPOSITION: All-over composition — no foreground, no background, no centre. The edge of the canvas is the only boundary.

No representation. No symbol. No narrative. Pure physical presence — paint, gesture, and the evidence of a body that moved through space to make this.