An essential American Abstract expressionist painter was Helen Frankenthaler. Born in New York City on December 12, 1928, she became well-known in the art world in the 1950s. The Colour Field movement,  defined by broad washes of colour applied on unprimed canvas, is sometimes linked to Frankenthaler’s art. “Mountains and Sea” (1952), one of her most well-known pieces, is regarded as a seminal work in the history of abstract expressionism. To produce flowing, organic shapes and brilliant colour fields, she applied her unique “soak-stain” process to this painting,  pouring diluted paint straight onto the canvas. 

A key player in the 20th-century abstract expressionist movement was Helen Frankenthaler. She gained particular notoriety for developing the novel “soak-stain” method, which entailed drizzling paint onto canvas and letting it absorb to produce brilliant, dreamy results.  

Abstract painting was revolutionised by Frankenthaler’s soak-stain method, which influenced artists of later generations. This technique emphasised the transparency and fluidity of paint rather than the dense impasto manner of many of her contemporaries. Frankenthaler’s art was a link between colour-field painting and abstract expressionism. Despite being a part of the abstract expressionist movement, her emphasis on vast colour expanses helped to establish colour field painting. 

Numerous artists, such as Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland, were influenced by her work and went on to expand the concepts of colour field painting. Her painting style also influenced later generations of painters interested in experimenting with painting mediums and techniques. Frankenthaler was one of the few well-known female artists in the male-dominated field of abstract expressionism. Her notoriety and achievement paved the path for other female artists, breaking the pervasive gender stereotypes in the arts. 

Landscaping Helen Frankenthaler

Abstract Expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler uses abstract painting techniques yet keeps connections to the familiar, especially to nature. She paints enormous abstract canvases using her feelings, experiences, aesthetic sense, and artistic training. Abstract paintings by Frankenthaler are not just arbitrary shapes or daubs of paint. There is a clear connection between her paintings and other inspirations. Helen Frankenthaler achieves deeper meanings through the blend of abstraction and environment. Her paintings, however, do not mimic the natural world. One could refer to them as “interior landscapes.”   

Frankenthaler pours paint onto a canvas on the floor, letting her ideas and feelings direct her work rather than purposefully starting to paint a landscape. Frankenthaler uses this method to paint environments. The majority, if not all, of Frankenthaler’s works demonstrate the connection between landscape and abstraction.   

Frankenthaler’s most well-known piece, Mountains and Sea from 1952, is also the pivotal piece that launched the remainder of her career. It is a masterwork of her abstract landscapes and the piece where she debuted her much-lauded invention, stain painting. From 1952 to the present, Frankenthaler has kept resolving the seeming contradiction between nature and abstraction in most of her canvases. This study illustrates this topic in Helen Frankenthaler’s work by examining several pieces from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. 

The landscape is a loaded question for an abstract painter. When one looks at an abstract horizontal canvas, one more or less consciously perceives nature or a horizon or view. One is not apt to think of a symbolic reference, which is more apt to be vertical. Looking specifically for figures or landscapes in abstraction can sometimes inhibit recognising a picture’s true quality. I am affected by nature, and I have made many paintings both ‘about nature’ and those that imply the figure, but it’s not a primary concern of mine. — Helen Frankenthaler

Most people picture the vast vistas of the romantic and idealised Hudson River School or the stunning landscapes of Dutch painters in the seventeenth century. Modern landscape art, however, does not depict conventional bucolic rural scenes. Frankenthaler’s art perfectly illustrates the modern landscape since it represents both the inner and outer worlds of the mind and the outside.  

‘Although Frankenthaler’s staining technique, her influence on other artists and her femininity in contrast to the macho male Abstract Expressionist are exciting topics. I do not want to look at Frankenthaler as a woman artist but as an artist. I do not want to follow the conventional route and emphasize the importance of her stain technique and influence on other artists. Her prolific career is too often seen as an aftermath of her watershed work, Mountains and 3 Sea; more accurately, Helen Frankenthaler has explored many ideas, styles and techniques from the 1950s to the present. I will explore her work and one theme in particular, the landscape and its relationship to abstraction and her innovative staining technique, writes Morgan Ridler. 

According to Morgan Ridler, ‘one of the oldest traditions in American painting is the landscape. The terrain of North America provides an endless supply of artistic inspiration. The American land represents individualism, freedom and spirituality. From the green forests and rolling hills of the northeast to the deserts of the southwest and everywhere in between, the American countryside is a subject that will continue to be utilized by American artists, including Frankenthaler. Generations of artists, from the Hudson River School of Painters to modern landscape artists, have painted the American environment. The Hudson River School used romantic ideals of beauty and the sublime to paint soaring views of the Rocky Mountains and majestic panoramas of the Hudson River valley. The early modernist painters Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, John Marin and Georgia O’Keeffe also used the seven landscapes as a means of expression. The American landscape tradition will always be vital to American painting.’ 

“The only rule is that there are no rules. Anything is possible. It’s all about taking deliberate risks.” – Helen Frankenthaler.

Woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler

A crucial quality of an artist whose work develops via experimenting is determination. Frankenthaler can unleash a spontaneous yet deliberate gesture because of her innate awareness of precisely what is needed to balance line, form, and colour within a specific pictorial space: “To make the entire surface appear felt and born all at once, you must learn how to use the accident, how to recognise it, how to control it, and ways to eliminate it.” Frankenthaler realised early in her career that she needed to constantly push herself and work outside her comfort zone to grow as an artist and improve aesthetically.  

Nothing is more artistically dissimilar from the world of a gestural, impulsive painter than the woodcut, a famously challenging and stiff medium. Frankenthaler’s method of painting is based on having a conversation with the painting itself—”a fighting, loving dialogue with this material.” You press it till you know this is correct, and it responds with an answer. She is directed and emerges out of the work to some extent. Therefore,  the artist’s approach or the rules controlling the medium must change when creating a woodcut, which calls for meticulous planning and countless technical modifications. Frankenthaler was keen to master the woodcut rather than understand its language because he considered it challenging.

Helen Frankenthaler’s woodcuts demonstrate the experimental style of an artist who has maintained her creative edge for over 50 years by willfully breaking the conventions. Even in her advanced years, Frankenthaler’s influence as a youthful painter has endured, not only because she is a talented general artist but also because she is an exceptional woodcut artist. Opting against the norm is not a simple task. Nevertheless, Frankenthaler has always gone with her gut and is among the few modern artists who have given the most antiquated printmaking methods a fresh, modern energy.   

Helen Frankenthaler is a legendary figure in 20th-century art who profoundly influenced the development of abstract painting. She captured the essence of emotion and movement in vivid hues, transforming the canvas into a place of ethereal beauty with her inventive soak-stain method. Frankenthaler’s work pushed the frontiers of artistic expression. It encouraged generations of artists to explore new possibilities in abstraction by serving as a bridge between abstract expressionism and colour-field painting. 

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