Tachisme

Tachisme (from the French tache, meaning stain or blot) is a term for the non-geometric abstract art that developed in Europe during the 1940s and 1950s, characterised by spontaneous brushwork, dribbles and blots of paint, and calligraphic, writing-like marks. Tachisme is regarded as the European counterpart of American Abstract Expressionism and as part of the broader phenomena of lyrical abstraction and art informel. The tendency rejected earlier rational, geometric art such as Cubism and Constructivism in favour of intuitive, gestural expression. Its leading figures include Hans Hartung, Georges Mathieu, Wols and Pierre Soulages. The Tachistes wanted the very texture of the paint and the trace of the artist's moving hand to become a direct carrier of emotion and the unconscious. This emphasis on spontaneity and the materiality of the surface later resonated with postwar European abstraction, joined by artists of Ukrainian origin in the diaspora.