Mystical Inspirations of Abstract Expressionist Painting

Action painting refers to a style within abstract art, especially abstract expressionist movement. In this study, it is aimed to trace the mystical experiences of the action painters in their creation process. In art literature, the abstract expressionist art movement emphasizes a process that creates the works of the artist without making any reservations to their creativity and awareness, and this movement also forms the basis of the action painting. In the action painting, the artwork of an artist has not been described as a product that reflects the inherent forces of nature, such as perception or imagination; but it is additionally emphasized that what the artist essentially wants to achieve is a spiritual purification. In other words, it is emphasized that the works of the action painting style not only reflect the characteristics of the abstract expressionist art movement but also the spiritual calmness; and this emphasis is explained in the search for "sublime art creation" of the artists, namely, Pollock, Rothko and Newman who are among the pioneers of this movement. These proposals accelerated the "mystic" approach in abstract expressionism. Based on this approach, in present study, attempts were made to explain the mystical experiences of some abstract expressionist painters during their creation process. It is accepted that the mysticism is a concept that reflects the mystic philosophy of both monotheistic and polytheistic religions. Mysticism is examined by taking into account the three classifications determined by the geographical prevalence scale: (1) Far East: Tao, Brahman, Tantric, and Zen, (2) West: Christian and Kabbalah, and (3) Middle East: Zarathustra and Sufi. In this study, Eastern and Western mysticism was tried to be explained by considering this classification. In the present study, the mystic inspirations of the artists who are the pioneers of Abstract Expressionism both in Turkey and in the world, namely, M. Zahit Büyükişliyen, Sabri Berkel, as well as Jackson Pollock, Bernett Newman, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, Wols, Georges Mathieu, tried to be marked in terms of their actions during the creation of painting process, their discourse, their products and their meetings with audiences. It is believed that the discussions of the present study will contribute to similar works supported by the literature.