abstract art
Abstract
art nonrepresentational art. Ornamental art without figurative
representation occurs in most cultures. The modern abstract
movement in sculpture and painting emerged in Europe and North
America between 1910 and 1920. Two approaches produce different
abstract styles:
images
that have been 'abstracted' from nature to the point
where
they no longer reflect a conventional reality, and
nonobjective,
or 'pure', art forms, without any reference to reality.
Abstract art began in the avant-garde
movements of the late 19th century - Impressionism,
Neo-Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism.
These styles of painting reduced the importance of the original
subject matter and began to emphasize the creative process of
painting itself. In the first decade of the 20th century, some
painters in Europe began to abandon the established Western
conventions of imitating nature and of storytelling and developed
a new artistic form and expression.
Wassily
Kandinsky
is
generally regarded as the first abstract artist. From 1910 to 1914
he worked on two series, Improvisations and Compositions, in which
he moved gradually towards total abstraction. His highly coloured
canvases influenced many younger European artists.
In France around 1907, the Cubists Pablo Picasso and Georges
Braque also developed a semi-abstract style; their pictures, some
partly collage, were composed mainly of fragmented natural images.
By 1912 Robert Delaunay had pushed Cubism
to complete abstraction. Many variations of abstract art developed
in Europe and Russia, as shown in the work of Piet
Mondrian,
Kasimir Malevich, the Futurists, the Vorticists,
and the Dadaists.
Sculptors were inspired by the new freedom in
form and content, and Constantin Brancusi's versions of The Kiss
1907-12 are among the earliest semi-abstract sculptures.
Cubist-inspired sculptors such as Raymond Duchamp-Villon
(1876-1918)
and Jacques Lipchitz moved further towards abstraction, as did the
Dadaist Hans Arp.
Two exhibitions of European art, one in New
York 1913 (the Armory Show), the other in San Francisco 1917,
opened the way for abstraction in US art. Many painters, including
the young Georgia O'Keeffe, experimented with new styles. Morgan
Russell (1886-1953) and Stanton Macdonald-Wright (1890-1973)
invented their own abstract style, Synchronism, a rival to Orphism,
a similar style developed in France by Delaunay - both emphasized
colour over form.
Abstract art has dominated Western art from 1920 and has continued
to produce many variations. In the 1940s it gained renewed vigour
in the works of the Abstract
Expressionists.
In the 1960s Minimal
art provoked
outraged reactions from critics and the general public alike.
text is taken from:
The Hutchinson; Dictionary Of The Arts;
Movements, Terms, People: from Ancient Art to World Music.
© Helicon Publishing Ltd 1994. ISBN 1-85986-047-8 (paper).
