It aims to provide viewers with an intangible and emotional experience, being completely different for each one, which can vary completely depending on the mood, the Abstract art it is the freedom that both the artist and the lover have to interpret the work as they wish, without any real commitment.
Abstract art
Abstract art is an artistic movement that was born at the beginning of the XNUMXth century, in remote parts of Germany, where it did not develop a common intention. The term designates those pictorial and plastic works that go beyond the representation of real objects. Abstract art or abstraction is generally understood as a form of art (especially in the visual arts) does not represent objects proper to our concrete external reality.
Instead, he uses the formal relationships between colours, lines and surfaces to compose the reality of the work, in a "non-representational" way. It comes from the experiences of the European avant-gardes, which reject the heritage of the Renaissance art academies, that is, the Greco-Roman aesthetic. The expression can also be used to refer specifically to art produced in the early XNUMXth century by certain movements and schools that generally conform to modern art.
At the beginning of the XNUMXth century, before artists reached absolute abstraction, the term was also used to refer to schools such as cubism and futurism that, while representational and figurative, sought to synthesize the elements of natural reality, giving as a result works that escaped the simple imitation of the "concrete".
Abstract art claims a series of tendencies, groups, creations, generally diverse, that are based on a protest against academicism and naturalism, removing from the plastic image the elements of the visible world, until then represented by the so-called figurative art. , and putting in its place a system of signs, lines, spots, which must express, in a pure form, the action of human rationality and sensibility but also the hidden thoughts and details of his personality that are buried in the soul waiting to be revealed. .
Definition of abstract art
The Flemish-French essayist and artist Michel Seuphor (pseudonym of Fernand Berckelaers) defines abstract art as follows: arbitrary disorder, where color, shape, structures and lines take the place of the figurative object, both in painting as in sculpture. Abstract comes from the Latin abstrahere and means to omit, remove, take distance.
The literal meaning is therefore "away from reality." When a person distances himself from reality, for example, from a realistic or figurative work of art, then the imagination of the human being is addressed, and that is precisely what abstract art is about. In a semi-abstract work of art, the work makes an abstract impression, but a representation can nonetheless be recognized.
Starting from the idea that the fine arts, architecture and music are abstract par excellence, they presuppose at the same time a sum of connections with the unreal and, as a general rule, not accepted as constructions, but as ensembles controlled by logic, the The first artists attracted by abstractionism manifest, with a feeling of liberation, all the emotional, sentimental and sensitive charge.
Abstract artists seek to be non-objective and non-figurative, allowing the viewer to interpret the meaning of the work from their point of view. Thus, abstract art is not an exaggerated or distorted view of the world as we see in the cubist paintings of Paul Cézanne and Pablo Picasso, as they exhibit a kind of conceptual realism. Instead, shape and color become the object and subject of the piece.
Abstract art appears almost simultaneously in several European countries, around 1910. Among the first representatives of this current is Wassily Kandinsky, who, starting in 1910, painted a series of paintings entitled "Improvisations" and published an extensive study, "Über das Geistige in der Kunst» (“On the spiritual in art”, 1911), which contributed to the affirmation of abstract art.
Abstract Art: Origins
Art historians generally identify the early XNUMXth century as an important historical moment in the birth of abstract art. During this period, artists focused on creating what they defined as "pure art": works of ingenuity that are not based on what is visually perceived, but on the artist's imagination.
But the origins of abstract art go back a long time. In fact, this is the first creative art that has emerged in human evolution. Human evolution began three million years ago with "imagination." Abstraction, take a step back from everyday reality to better survive in a difficult environment. It took three million years to evolve from using one tool to using multiple tools. A hammer now seems merely figurative, but it took three million years to imagine it.
The great renaissance of abstract and figurative art occurred in all the prehistoric caves of the Mediterranean, forty thousand years ago. However, this revival started all over the world. It was a new evolution of the human brain. In the Lascaux caves we can see squares and rectangles in the main cave with a scene of a reclining man with a bird and bull mask. It is not a hunting scene, but a dream scene of a man in REM sleep.
But other figures can also be found in all the caves of the Mediterranean. The circle, half circle, crescent, triangle, line, wavy line, dots, spiral, cross sign, pentagram, our hashtag and much more. These were the first pictograms, informative image signs, which formed the origin of all written language. Also imagination to transmit thoughts. Only ten thousand years ago did religions arise from this spiritual imagination.
Perhaps abstract art has always existed: the mysterious indentations of prehistoric pottery, the Celtic basketry that adorned miniatures for a long time, the formal language of architecture. However, as it was part of a utility object, an ornamental feature, a building, etc., it does not fall under the general definition of abstract art.
Non-objective pictorial art is less present in Christian art than in Jewish and Islamic culture, where abstract expression arises from the prohibition of making a representation in any form of art of the supreme. Abstract art was a necessity in those religions, because the representation of concrete things was strictly prohibited to avoid a return to the idolatry of people, animals or celestial bodies.
In truth, abstract art is much older than we think, dating back to simplified geometric patterns and designs made by early man on cave walls. Traditionally, however, abstraction is believed to have emerged from expressionism at the hands of Wassily Kandinsky, for whom the arrangement of form and color visually represented a path into our spiritual and emotional interior. aspects.
The basis of expressionist art (representing not merely figurative scenes but our own moods and emotions in pictorial form) made a natural progression towards the abstract. From a technical point of view, Expressionism laid the groundwork for abstraction: it involved the bold use of vivid colors, often in crude or unnaturalistic brushstrokes, and a reduction of images to increasingly simplified designs to heighten the impact of color. and the shape.
From a theoretical perspective, this move towards the abstract seemed almost inevitable. The very things that the Expressionists wanted to convey in their art, sensations and emotions, were themselves 'abstract' notions, intangible and essentially indefinable. That an abstract subject demanded an abstract mode of expression seemed a natural progression of thought.
However, when the first truly abstract works began to appear in the mid-1910s, it became clear that attitudes and approaches to abstraction would be as divided and controversial as the movements that followed.
Pioneers
Early painters and sculptors stopped depicting the real world shortly after 1900. The career of Wassily Kandinsky is well known, moving from stylizing painting in the Munich Art Nouveau sense through numerous phases of development to abstract compositions that lead to the absolute non-representation of geometric shapes. Kandinsky laid the theoretical foundations for this new trend in painting with his work "On the Spiritual in Art", developed in 1910.
However, it is debatable whether it really has a pioneering role in the history of the development of abstract art. According to his own statements, he painted his first nonrepresentational painting of himself in 1910. In the meantime, however, experts assume this work to have been later. It was probably not created until 1913. The Czech Frantiek Kupka had already created abstract paintings in 1911.
According to a report written by the historian and journalist Julia Voss in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in April 2011, Hilma af Klint (1882-1944) is considered to be the first artist to dedicate herself to painting abstract pictures. A series of small-format images she created in November 1906 was followed by her first large-format work of art in 1907.
French artists Sonia Delaunay-Terk, Francis Picabia and Robert Delaunay, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, active in France and Switzerland, and Dutchman Piet Mondrian are other pioneers of abstract painting. The first non-representational sculptural works emerged around 1920 by the Russian constructivist E. Lissitzky, the Ukrainian sculptor Alexander Archipenko, and the English sculptor Henry Moore.
Characteristic features of abstract art
Abstract art offers many more possibilities in terms of design than representational art forms. Whereas in the past only landscapes, houses, people and animals were depicted, there is much greater freedom in abstract art. With this modern expression, artists are concerned with the representation of inner worlds that are more multifaceted than the visually perceptible outer world. They encourage the viewer to take a closer look at their creation and discover what they want to convey to them.
If a direct reference to reality cannot be established, the only option left is to interpret the artwork itself. As an aid, the artist often provides a written caption that provides information about what he thought and felt during the production. Without this help, even seasoned art experts come to different opinions when interpreting the same work.
The most important building blocks of abstract art are color, shape, and the material used. Modern artists often claim that no comparison with the figures and forms of nature is possible. They attach great importance to the fact that their creations are based solely on their creativity.
Central motifs
Since 1910, abstract art has appeared in ever new styles. Its stylistic diversity goes back to the two lines of its origins:
- on the one hand, it arises from the free artistic development that originated in expressionism, was founded by Wassily Kandinsky and continued by Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Hans Hartung, Jackson Pollock and other artists, which was already carried out by Art Nouveau artists such as August Endell, Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis and Hermann Obrist.
- On the other hand, it is based on the direction of geometry, which started almost at the same time from Cubism, to which the artists Michail Fjodorowitsch Larionow, Kasimir Severinowitsch Malewitsch, Frantiek Kupka and Piet Mondrian can be assigned.
While the first of these original forms reached its freest form of expression in informal art, starting in 1945, the other experienced its strictest connection in the field of technoid constructivism, which went through the development of concrete art.
From the 1940s, there was also the abstract painting elaborated by Paul Klee with a visual language of decorative, magical symbols and rhythms of forms. The best-known representatives of this art movement include Willi Baumeister and various artists from the École de Paris.
After preliminary stages in Art Nouveau, such as Hermann Obrist's Spirals of Growth, abstract sculpture has existed since around 1912/13 (Alexander Archipenko, soon after Rudolf Belling). A little later, in Russian constructivism, which includes, for example, Vladimir Jewgrafowicz Tatlin, Antoine Pevsner, and Naum Gabo, the mutual interpenetration of lines and surfaces with space emerged as one of the most important themes in the field of construction. abstract sculpture during the XNUMXth century.
In addition to this constructive line, Hans Arp initiated in 1916 a trend based on forms of growth with a vegetal effect. In the 1950s, abstract sculptures were created primarily in the US (D. Smith). From 1960 horizontally oriented metal sculptures open on all sides followed (school building: E. Caro, England).
Artistic movements in abstract art
After its creation, abstract painting broke into several different styles in a short period of time. The cross-subdivision into a geometric abstraction (Theo van Doesburg, Piet Mondrian, Kasimir Severinowitsch Malewitsch) and an expressive abstraction (Wassily Kandinsky) or in a constructive-geometric and lyrical direction is mainly related to external characteristics and less to methodological ones.
Surrealism also used abstract principles. American Jackson Pollock is considered the best-known representative of the art movement that was later called abstract expressionism or action painting. However, other modern artists such as André Masson, a French surrealist, were pioneers.
artistic techniques
Action painting, internationally known for Jackson Pollock, is a direction of modern painting in the field of abstract expressionism. It appeared in the United States in the early 1950s and is similar to European tachism. Oil paint is also used for abstract art. This supreme classical discipline of art is used in particular in portrait, landscape and genre painting and in still lifes. The durability of oil paint is as unsurpassed as the brilliance of its color.
In the area of abstract oil and acrylic painting, the palette knife technique, pouring technique, dripping (spraying paint onto the canvas), enamel technique and mixed media are some of the most important methods. . Sculpture includes steel, wood, and sandstone sculptures, bronze castings, and plastic sculptures. In addition, there is collage and the use of different materials, known as mixed media.
Types of abstract art
In abstract art, four types are identified: sensitive or informal abstractionism, tachyism, geometric abstraction and action painting. Each of these types of abstract art has its special distinguishing features that set them apart:
Sensitive or informal abstractionism
Feelings and emotions predominate. Colors and shapes are freely created. In Germany arises the movement called "The Blue Knight" whose founders are Kandinsky and Franz Marc among others. These artists delve into chromatic research, achieving spatial and formal variations in painting, through the tones and tonalities obtained.
They want an abstract expressionism, sensitive and emotional. With form, color and line, the artist is free to express his inner feelings, without relating them to the memory of the outside world. These elements of the composition must have unity and harmony, like a musical work.
tachism
Tachyism appeared in the period after the Second World War, in Europe, with the intention of breaking with previous models of art. The name of the movement comes from the French tache, which means stain. Formed by spots created impulsively with all the artist's freedom or emotional outpouring. Lyrical tachism shows luminous, transparent and spontaneous tones. Dramatic tachism has dark, serious and passionate tones.
It is possible to imagine, by looking at the painting, the movements that the artists made. An important artist representing this type of painting is Hans Hartung. This type of abstraction is also called an informal abstraction, in the sense that it does not have a definite form. The raw material used for the paint was also explored. Some artists gave more priority to the gesture and others to investigating the material, creating textures, layers and using new materials.
geometric abstraction
It is the geometric abstract art that was greatly influenced by the cubist and futurist movements. This is due to the use of geometric shapes and with a more rational and hard trait in the representations. Therefore, the lines and colors are arranged in a way that results in a mostly geometric composition.
As this aspect emerged shortly after the formal discoveries of Cubism, it had several currents, some of which deserve to be highlighted. Among them: Suprematism, Constructivism, Neoplasticism or De Stijl, Concretism and Neoconcretism.
action painting
It is the production of improvised and gestural 'drip paintings', placing your canvas on the ground and pouring paint over it from the can or dragging it with a brush or stick. This type of painting has no prior schemes, and appeared in New York in the 1940s under the influence of automatic surrealist painting processes.
Important artists in abstract art
The painter Francis Picabia, France, and Wassily Kandinsky, Russia, created works of abstract art around 1911 and are therefore considered important pioneers of abstract art. However, this is by no means an invention of the XNUMXth century. Painting has followed this path in the Jewish and Islamic world for many centuries. This is mainly due to religious beliefs, which in many ways do not allow any artistic representation. The best known representatives of abstract art include:
- Gerhard Richter, Germany, (* 1932)
- Wassily Kandinsky, Russia, Germany, France, (1866 – 1944)
- Jackson Pollock, United States, (1912 – 1956)
- Yves Klein, France, (1928-1962)
- Willem de Kooning, United States, (1904-1997)
- Roberto Matta, Chile, (1911-2002)
- David Alfaro Siqueiros, Mexico, (1896-1974)
- Joaquin Torres Garcia, Uruguay, (1874-1949)
- Alfredo Volpi, Brazil, (1896-1988)
- Olga Albizu, Puerto Rico, (1924-2005)
- Jesus Rafael Soto, Venezuela, (1923-2005)
- Carlos Merida, Guatemala, (1891-1984)
Criticisms Faced by Abstract Art
Abstract art was strongly polarized from the start. It was met with an enthusiastic reception and defense among those who came into contact with it, as well as serious and controversial criticism. Even well-known art historians and artists were skeptical or even negative.
Abstract art had a difficult time being accepted by both the public and art critics. Due to its deviation from the established concept of art and its lack of representativeness, it met the discontent of the majority of the public. They commented that it was not art and that no craftsmanship or artistic talent was required to create it. Controversially, critics cited examples of chimpanzee painting to disparage abstract art.
Another direction is the criticism that abstract painting, especially abstract expressionism, would have been functionalized during the Cold War. The accusation arises that the CIA funds Jackson Pollock and other abstract expressionists in connection with the Congress for Cultural Freedom and in concert with the funding policy of the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.
In exchange for the expansion of Stalin's socialist realism into his sphere of influence, post-war abstract art in destroyed Europe offered an opportunity to demonstrate political and artistic freedom and progressiveness without revealing an overly overt socially critical message.
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