A Fusing of Horizons: Approaching Rosenberg’s “American Action Painters” Through a Hermeneutical Lens
Chantelle Flores
University of Maine
Keywords: literary theory, art theory, art criticism, art history, hermeneutics
Abstract
Although Harold Rosenberg is not credited with main hermeneutical philosophers and theorists of his time, his "painting as event" presents an encounter with artwork common with the progression of literary hermeneutical thought. His "painting as event" can be analyzed as an encounter with the guiding elements of materiality as shown in the work of Louise Rosenblatt and Joanna Drucker. Often, Rosenberg’s “American Action Painters” is viewed without the addition of an audience, but Christa Robbins argues that Rosenberg’s “American Action Painters” should be viewed within the habituses of socio-political thought Rosenberg was inherently a part of and the audiences he commonly interacted with. With a hermeneutical lens, one can view abstract expressionism not as unattainable, heroic actions but as moments of effective history and a performance within a habitus and with materiality that all art viewers can seek to understand.
