"You have to have time to feel sorry for yourself if you're going to be a good abstract expressionist."
Jasper Johns and
Robert Rauschenberg were most definitely
not abstract expressionists! They are associated with the
pop artists, though both
transcend the comparatively simple pop art of someone like
Roy Lichtenstein. The pop movement was in part a reaction
against abstract expressionism, looking on the latter as
elitist and
narcissistic (not an assessment that I agree with, BTW). They looked at
popular culture for inspiration instead of
high culture and thought their work was the
antithesis of
expressionism.
Rauschenberg’s early work
is influenced by abstract expressionism to a limited degree. His
monochromatic White Painting and
Black Painting are probably what you are referring to, but they are not representative of his body of work. The difference between a
Pollock action painting and a Rauschenberg
combine may not seem like much in the greater scheme of things, and the latter does owe a debt to the former, in truth they come from two very different artistic points of view.