BRUST! ABSTRACT PAINTING AFTER 1945

The triumph of radical abstraction after 1945 has been linked to notions of freedom, individuality, and a breaking away from the burdensome shackles of the art-historical tradition. Following the Second World War, figurative painting was increasingly seen as an outmoded impasse. Abstraction, on the other hand - considered as bursts of individual freedom - was soon championed as a fitting way of visibly leaving the scars of the past behind and hailed as the reflection of artistic, cultural, moral and social renewal.