From the archive: George McNeil,"Spontaneity" an essay in It Is, No.3 (1959)
Spontaneity by George McNeil
Published in It Is : A Magazine for Abstract Art, No. 3 (Winter/Spring 1959) p. 14-15
“It Is” was one of the most experimental magazines initiated and supported by members of the New York School of Abstract Expressionism. Influential of the time, the publication helped shape and define Post War American Art in New York. McNeil’s essay on “Spontaneity” was published alongside other essays that included “Non-History” by Philip Pavia, “Face Front” by Sidney Geist and “Abstraction in Poetry” by Allen Ginsberg. The following text has been transcribed from the original published essay on behalf of the Estate of George McNeil by Artist Estate Studio, LLC.
transcription: Spontaneity, like wit, cannot readily be analyzed and explained. How can one indicate how a phrase is turned into an epigram or how dirty color which "works" may be inserted into an area which calls for luminosity? The way painting spontaneity operates is worth describing, although not psychologically explainable, since it has been singularly important in characterizing much post-1942 painting.
At the outset, two points must be stated. Spontaneity is not a value but rather a means or technique. To say that a painting is "spontaneous" is not to say that it is good or bad; this merely describes how the painting was done. Also, "spontaneity" will be treated in terms of my own interpretation. For example, perhaps I was asked to write this because others see my work as "spontaneous": I see it more as labored, with spontaneity as an occasional lead to greater meaning.
Here is how it works with me. When the hacking begins to slow and finally stop, when conscious building of color masses or extensions of movement, in short, known and sophisticated approaches, ceases to force the painting on, I react by spontaneously striking lines or colors into the dead structure to enliven or resuscitate it. Here intuition works explosively to shake up or dislocate known relations into an unknown which facilitates further re-working. Spontaneous cutting-through or cutting-into negates or should negate consciously processed relating, and helps counter the designing which enfeebles abstract painting. Thus conscious, continued ordering towards expressiveness alternates with spontaneous, subliminal "destructions" which, enigmatically, are the most constructive steps in painting.
This automatic short-circuiting of conscious relating may take two forms. With closed eyes, one may deliberately brush in a blindly black movement. Or the reactive impulse might aim at a summative or integral or shorthand seizing of the subject. Working from a still-life, one might essay a massive, pictorial "writing" to catch its essential character, say its total space. Here in one charge one tries to summate millions of fragmented precepts. This, of course, is more conscious "spontaneity"; implied is a fervent and passionate hope that with luck or grace the deeply felt sensation may be brought to pictorial consummation. Again let me insist that whether the act is more or less spontaneous is inconsequential: it is only the result that is significant.
Both accidental and figured spontaneous statements tend toward massive simplicity, toward singular form: this is one of the most significant aspects of action painting and of spontaneity as its means. Since the ancient Greeks, painting has been marked by an assemblage of objects. Take Jan Van Eyck's "Betrothal of the Arnolfini" in the National Gallery, London. Along with the two figures, there is a compost of dog-chandelier-missor-slippers-bed and other distinct objects. Yet with this as with other representational masterpieces, the meaning, the weighted statement, the art does come through. However, since the beginning of the nineteenth century and particularly with the Impressionists, there has been a tendency away from plural objects toward a singular pictorial statement. Cezanne dematerialized and dislocated objects in striving toward plastic impact. This was furthered by the Cubist and other abstract movements but soon led to a new assemblage - that of shapes rather than objects. Contrast Picasso's "Ma Jolie" (1911-1912) with his "Three Musicians" (1921), both in the Museum of Modern Art. In the former, no single object or shape stands out from the total energy impact; in the "Three Musicians", one can count dozens of clearly defined planes. It remained for Tobey and Pollock to revive the early abstract tendency toward a mass image. Particularly Pollock, with his over-all painting, realized a total, non-shape form. Kline has continued and re-enforced this with his "one-shot" massive black-and-whites. Certainly in the latter's work, we have crystalized spontaneity, where, whatever the mediation, the final form registers unmitigated might. Kline's impulsive "mass" painting seems to correspond to the figuring of a sensation which I described earlier, and contrasts with my alternation of structuring with spontaneity.
Which brings us to the present. Perhaps more than anything else it's a matter of sustaining nerve, of finding means for eliciting overwhelmingly primitive impulses. Perhaps we need a reactive motive, some restraining influence to compress creative energy antecedent to its spontaneous and meaningful discharge. At any rate, it is hoped that the bravura, the careful-carelessness of latter-day action Boldinis and Sargents will not apotheosize spontaneity, will not make it into a meaningless thing-in-itself.