All-over painting

All-over painting refers to the non-differential treatment of the surface of a work of two-dimensional art, for instance a painting. This concept is most popularly thought of as emerging in relation to the so-called "drip" paintings of Jackson Pollock and the "automatic writing" or "abstract calligraphy" of Mark Tobey in the 1950s, though the applicability of the term all-over painting would be wider than that. "All-over painting" is not a formal style of painting and the term does not represent an "art movement." Some painting under the heading color field painting displays the "all-over" painting style. Such a painting would fail to treat the top, for instance, differently from the bottom; the left than the right. Uniform treatment of all sections of the surface are the hallmark of all-over painting. All-over paintings would lack a dominant point of interest, or any indication of which way is "up." Some paintings by Cy Twombly have had this term applied to them.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

Clement Greenberg cited Janet Sobel's as the first instance of all-over painting he had seen.^[6]

References

1. "all-over painting Facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about all-over painting". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
2. Archived October 7, 2009 at the Wayback Machine
3. "All-over Painting". Artprofessor.com. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
4. "ArtLex's Al-Am page". Artlex.com. 2007-02-16. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
5. "Directory of Art Services and Resources". artnet. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
6. ROBERTA SMITHPublished: February 15, 2002 (2002-02-15). "ART IN REVIEW; Janet Sobel - New York Times". Nytimes.com. Retrieved 2012-07-16.