Action painting. A term first used by U.S. critic Rosenberg to describe a method of painting widespread in the 1950s and 1960s, in which the paint is dripped, dropped or thrown on the canvas — hence the French term 'I'achisme (tache, 'stain' or 'spot'); some critics use both terms as interchangeable with Abstract Expressionism. The term was first used about the work of Pollock but has also been applied to European artists associated with lachisnie.