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Encyclopedic overview
Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical act of painting itself as an essential aspect of the finished work or concern of its artist.
Background
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “action painting” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.