Ricardo Gullón, “The New Phase,” translated from Spanish by Paul David Martin, originally published as “Introducción al arte abstracto,” in El arte abstracto y sus problemas (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispánica, 1956), 28–32; in English in Be-Bomb: The Transatlantic War of Images and all that Jazz 1946–1956 (Barcelona: Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Barcelona, 2007), 592–593

doi:10.4324/9781003009979-1614

Chapter

Ricardo Gullón, “The New Phase,” translated from Spanish by Paul David Martin, originally published as “Introducción al arte abstracto,” in El arte abstracto y sus problemas (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispánica, 1956), 28–32; in English in Be-Bomb: The Transatlantic War of Images and all that Jazz 1946–1956 (Barcelona: Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Barcelona, 2007), 592–593

Chapter

ABSTRACT

The chapter explores Abstract Expressionism, Abstract Impressionism, and Abstract Surrealism. The essayist and art critic Ricardo Gullón was founding member of the progressive School of Altamira in 1949 in Santillana del Mar, defending abstraction as a viable path for an avant-garde in postwar Spain. Various members of the School of Altamira participated in the Congreso Internacional de Arte Abstracto held in August 1953 in Santander, which signaled a wider acceptance of abstract art, also at an official level. Abstract art has entered a new phase. The fact that the adversaries of abstract art are the first to protest against the supposed deviation from some of its directions is an amusing phenomenon. If abstraction is a synthesis, there is no room for half measures. Abstraction can be achieved in figures originating in dreams, of a fantastic texture, because underneath them forms and colors operate as supporting forces, as what is fundamental in the work.