Jean-Paul Riopelle to abstract expressionism), in which he used myriad tumultuous cubes and triangles of multicolored elements, facetted with a palette knife, spatula, or trowel, on often large canvases to create powerful atmospheres. The presence of long filaments of paint in his painting from 1948 through the early 1950s has often been seen as resulting from a dripping technique like that of Jackson Pollock. Rather, the creation of such effects came from the act of throwing, with a palette knife or brush, large quantities of paint onto the stretched canvas (positioned vertically). Riopelle's voluminous impasto became just as important as color. His
Tet (Morris Louis painting) and to artists in New York such as Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, and Helen Frankenthaler. It was Frankenthaler who created the technique of staining: a process using thinned paint and gravity on an unstretched and untreated canvas. Greenberg admired Frankenthaler’s technique because of his theories on “purism” within the arts. Greenberg believed that painting’s one characteristic which distinguished it from other art forms was its “flatness.” This quality was enhanced by the staining process. The paint actually soaked into the surface of the canvas, showing no three-dimensional qualities. Frankenthaler’s painting "Mountains and Sea" would stand as Louis’s primary influence in