Abstract art: Difference between revisions
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{{merge|Abstract photography|discuss=Talk:Abstract photography#Proposed merge with Abstract art|date=March 2015}} |
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[[File:First abstract watercolor kandinsky 1910.jpg|thumb|300px|[[Wassily Kandinsky]], [[first abstract watercolor|Kandinsky's first abstract watercolor]], 1910.]] |
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[[Image:Robert Delaunay, 1913, Premier Disque, 134 cm, 52.7 inches, Private collection.jpg|thumb|300px|[[Robert Delaunay]], 1912–13, ''Le Premier Disque'', 134 cm (52.7 in.), Private collection.]] |
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'''Abstract art''' uses a [[visual language]] of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world.<ref>Rudolph Arnheim, ''Visual Thinking''</ref> [[Western art]] had been, from the [[Renaissance]] up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of [[Perspective (visual)|perspective]] and an attempt to reproduce an illusion of visible reality. The arts of cultures other than the European had become accessible and showed alternative ways of describing visual experience to the artist. By the end of the 19th century many artists felt a need to create a new kind of art which would encompass the fundamental changes taking place in technology, science and philosophy. The sources from which individual artists drew their theoretical arguments were diverse, and reflected the social and intellectual preoccupations in all areas of Western culture at that time.<ref>Mel Gooding, ''Abstract Art'', [[Tate Publishing Ltd|Tate Publishing]], London, 2000</ref> |
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Abstract art, nonfigurative art, nonobjective art, and nonrepresentational art are loosely related terms. They are similar, but perhaps not of identical meaning. |
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Abstraction indicates a departure from reality in depiction of [[image]]ry in art. This departure from accurate representation can be slight, partial, or complete. Abstraction exists along a continuum. Even art that aims for verisimilitude of the highest degree can be said to be abstract, at least theoretically, since perfect representation is likely to be exceedingly elusive. Artwork which takes liberties, altering for instance color and form in ways that are conspicuous, can be said to be partially abstract. Total abstraction bears no trace of any reference to anything recognizable. In [[geometric abstraction]], for instance, one is unlikely to find references to naturalistic entities. [[Figurative art]] and total abstraction are almost [[Mutually exclusive events|mutually exclusive]]. But [[Figurative art|figurative]] and [[Representation (arts)|representational]] (or [[Realism (visual arts)|realistic]]) art often contains partial abstraction. |
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Both [[geometric abstraction]] and [[lyrical abstraction]] are often totally abstract. Among the very numerous [[art movements]] that embody partial abstraction would be for instance [[fauvism]] in which color is conspicuously and deliberately altered vis-a-vis reality, and [[cubism]], which blatantly alters the forms of the real life entities depicted.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://painting.about.com/od/abstractart/a/abstract_art.htm |title=Abstract Art – What Is Abstract Art or Abstract Painting, retrieved January 7, 2009 |publisher=Painting.about.com |date=2011-06-07 |accessdate=2011-06-11| archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20110707075052/http://painting.about.com/od/abstractart/a/abstract_art.htm| archivedate= 7 July 2011 <!--DASHBot-->| deadurl= no}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nga.gov/education/american/abstract.shtm |title=Themes in American Art – Abstraction, retrieved January 7, 2009 |publisher=Nga.gov |date=2000-07-27 |accessdate=2011-06-11| archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20110608093226/http://www.nga.gov/education/american/abstract.shtm| archivedate= 8 June 2011 <!--DASHBot-->| deadurl= no}}</ref> |
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==History== |
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<ref></ref> |
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{{main|History of painting|Western painting}} |
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=== Abstraction in early art and many cultures === |
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{{Main|Prehistoric art|Eastern art history}} |
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Much of the art of earlier cultures – signs and marks on pottery, textiles, and inscriptions and paintings on rock – were simple, geometric and linear forms which might have had a symbolic or decorative purpose.<ref>György Kepes, ''Sign, Symbol and Image''</ref> It is at this level of visual meaning that abstract art communicates. One can enjoy the beauty of [[Chinese calligraphy]] or [[Islamic calligraphy]] without being able to read it. |
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=== 19th century === |
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{{main|Romanticism|Impressionism|Post-Impressionism|Expressionism}} |
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Three [[art movement]]s which contributed to the development of abstract art were [[Romanticism]], [[Impressionism]] and [[Expressionism]]. Artistic independence for artists was advanced during the 19th century. Patronage from the church diminished and private patronage from the public became more capable of providing a livelihood for artists.{{Citation needed|date=February 2013}} |
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[[Image:James Abbot McNeill Whistler 012.jpg|thumb|left|[[James McNeill Whistler]], ''[[Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket]]'' (1874), [[Detroit Institute of Arts]]. A near abstraction, in 1877 Whistler sued the art critic [[John Ruskin]] for libel after the critic condemned this painting. Ruskin accused Whistler of "ask[ing] two hundred [[Guinea (British coin)|guineas]] for throwing a pot of paint in the public's face." |
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<ref>[http://blogs.princeton.edu/wri152-3/rpower/archives/001951.html Whistler versus Ruskin, Princeton edu.] Retrieved June 13, 2010</ref><ref>[http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/turnerwhistlermonet/wvr.htm From the Tate], retrieved April 12, 2009</ref>]] |
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Early intimations of a new art had been made by [[James McNeill Whistler]] who, in his painting ''[[Nocturne in Black and Gold: The falling Rocket]]'', (1872), placed greater emphasis on visual sensation than the depiction of objects. An ''objective interest in what is seen'', can be discerned from the paintings of [[John Constable]], [[J M W Turner]], [[Camille Corot]] and from them to the Impressionists who continued the ''[[plein air]]'' painting of the [[Barbizon school]]. [[Paul Cézanne]] had begun as an Impressionist but his aim – to make a logical construction of reality based on a view from a single point,<ref>Herbert Read, ''A Concise History of Modern Art'', Thames and Hudson</ref> with modulated colour in flat areas – became the basis of a new visual art, later to be developed into [[Cubism]] by [[Georges Braque]] and [[Pablo Picasso]]. |
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[[Expressionism|Expressionist]] painters explored the bold use of paint surface, drawing distortions and exaggerations, and intense color. Expressionists produced emotionally charged paintings that were reactions to and perceptions of contemporary experience; and reactions to [[Impressionism]] and other more conservative directions of late 19th-century painting. The Expressionists drastically changed the emphasis on subject matter in favor of the portrayal of psychological states of being. Although artists like [[Edvard Munch]] and [[James Ensor]] drew influences principally from the work of the [[Post-Impressionists]] they were instrumental to the advent of abstraction in the 20th century. |
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[[File:Yellow Curtain.jpg|thumb|[[Henri Matisse]], ''[[Le rideau jaune|The Yellow Curtain]]'', 1915. With his [[Fauvism|Fauvist]] color and drawing Matisse comes very close to pure abstraction.]] Additionally in the late 19th century in Eastern Europe [[mysticism]] and early [[Modernism|modernist]] religious philosophy as expressed by [[Theosophy|theosophist]] [[Helena Blavatsky|Mme. Blavatsky]] had a profound impact on pioneer [[Geometric abstraction|geometric]] artists like [[Wassily Kandinsky]], and [[Hilma af Klint]]. The mystical teaching of [[Georges Gurdjieff]] and [[P.D. Ouspensky]] also had an important influence on the early formations of the geometric abstract styles of [[Piet Mondrian]] and his colleagues in the early 20th century.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Mondrian---mysticism---ldquo-My-long-search-is-over-rdquo--4237 |title=Hilton Kramer, "Mondrian & mysticism: My long search is over", ''New Criterion'', September 1995 |publisher=Newcriterion.com |date= |accessdate=2012-02-26}}</ref> |
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=== 20th century === |
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{{main|Western painting|Fauvism|Cubism|}} |
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[[Post Impressionism]] as practiced by [[Paul Gauguin]], [[Georges Seurat]], [[Vincent van Gogh]] and [[Paul Cézanne]] had an enormous impact on [[20th-century art]] and led to the advent of 20th-century abstraction. The heritage of painters like [[Van Gogh]], [[Cézanne]], [[Gauguin]], and [[Seurat]] was essential for the development of [[modern art]]. At the beginning of the 20th century [[Henri Matisse]] and several other young artists including the pre-cubist [[Georges Braque]], [[André Derain]], [[Raoul Dufy]] and [[Maurice de Vlaminck]] revolutionized the Paris art world with "wild", multi-colored, expressive landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called [[Fauvism]]. With his expressive use of color and his free and imaginative drawing Henri Matisse comes very close to pure abstraction in ''French Window at Collioure'' (1914), ''[[View of Notre-Dame]]'' (1914), and ''[[Le rideau jaune|The Yellow Curtain]]'' from 1915. The raw language of color as developed by the [[Fauvism|Fauves]] directly influenced another pioneer of abstraction, [[Wassily Kandinsky]] (see illustration). |
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Although [[Cubism]] ultimately depends upon subject matter, it became, along with [[Fauvism]], the art movement that directly opened the door to abstraction in the 20th century. [[Pablo Picasso]] made his first [[Cubism|cubist]] paintings based on Cézanne's idea that all depiction of nature can be reduced to three solids: [[cube]], [[sphere]] and [[cone (geometry)|cone]]. With the painting ''[[Les Demoiselles d'Avignon]]'' (1907), Picasso dramatically created a new and radical picture depicting a raw and primitive brothel scene with five prostitutes, violently painted women, reminiscent of [[African tribal masks]] and his own new [[Cubist]] inventions. [[Analytic cubism]] was jointly developed by Pablo Picasso and [[Georges Braque]], from about 1908 through 1912. Analytic cubism, the first clear manifestation of cubism, was followed by [[Synthetic cubism]], practiced by Braque, Picasso, [[Fernand Léger]], [[Juan Gris]], [[Albert Gleizes]], [[Marcel Duchamp]] and others into the 1920s. [[Synthetic cubism]] is characterized by the introduction of different textures, surfaces, [[collage]] elements, [[papier collé]] and a large variety of merged subject matter. The collage artists like [[Kurt Schwitters]] and [[Man Ray]] and others taking the clue from [[Cubism]] were instrumental to the development of the movement called [[Dada]]. |
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[[File:František Kupka, 1912, Amorpha, fugue en deux couleurs (Fugue in Two Colors), 210 x 200 cm, Narodni Galerie, Prague.jpg|thumb|left|thumb|[[František Kupka]], ''Amorpha, Fugue en deux couleurs'' (''Fugue in Two Colors''), 1912, oil on canvas, 210 x 200 cm, Narodni Galerie, Prague. Published in ''Au Salon d'Automne "Les Indépendants"'' 1912, Exhibited at the 1912 Salon d'Automne, Paris.]] |
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[[File:'Windows Open Simultaneously (First Part, Third Motif)' by Robert Delaunay.JPG||thumb|right|Robert Delaunay, 1912, ''Windows Open Simultaneously (First Part, Third Motif)'', oil on canvas, 45.7 x 37.5 cm, [[Tate Modern]]]] |
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The Italian poet [[Marinetti]] published 'The Founding and Manifesto of [[Futurism]]' in 1909, which inspired artists such as [[Carlo Carra]] in ''Painting of Sounds, Noises and Smells'' and [[Umberto Boccioni]] ''Train in Motion'', 1911, to a further stage of abstraction and profoundly influenced art movements throughout Europe.<ref>Caroline Tisdall and Angelo Bozzolla, ''Futurism'', Thames and Hudson,1977</ref> |
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During the 1912 Salon de la [[Section d'Or]] the poet [[Guillaume Apollinaire]] named the work of several artists including [[Robert Delaunay|Robert]] and [[Sonia Delaunay]], [[Orphism (art)|Orphism]].<ref>''La Section d'or, 1912-1920-1925'', Cécile Debray, Françoise Lucbert, Musées de Châteauroux, Musée Fabre, exhibition catalogue, Éditions Cercle d'art, Paris, 2000</ref> He defined it as, ''the art of painting new structures out of elements that have not been borrowed from the visual sphere, but had been created entirely by the artist...it is a pure art.''<ref>Harrison and Wood, ''Art in theory, 1900–2000'', Wiley-Blackwell, 2003, p. 189. ISBN 978-0-631-22708-3.[https://books.google.com/books?id=SWu4SB92fHMC&pg=PA189&dq=Apollinaire+on+Art books.google.com"] |
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</ref> |
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Since the turn of the century, cultural connections between artists of the major European and American cities had become extremely active as they strove to create an art form equal to the high aspirations of [[modernism]]. Ideas were able to cross-fertilize by means of artist's books, exhibitions and [[art manifesto|manifestos]] so that many sources were open to experimentation and discussion, and formed a basis for a diversity of modes of abstraction. The following extract from,'The World Backwards', gives some impression of the inter-connectedness of culture at the time: '[[David Burliuk]]'s knowledge of modern art movements must have been extremely up-to-date, for the second [[Russian avant-garde|Knave of Diamonds exhibition]], held in January 1912 (in Moscow) included not only paintings sent from Munich, but some members of the German [[Die Brücke]] group, while from Paris came work by [[Robert Delaunay]], [[Henri Matisse]] and [[Fernand Léger]], as well as Picasso. During the Spring David Burliuk gave two lectures on cubism and planned a polemical publication, which the Knave of Diamonds was to finance. He went abroad in May and came back determined to rival the almanac ''[[Der Blaue Reiter]]'' which had emerged from the printers while he was in Germany'. |
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From 1909 to 1913 many experimental works in the search for this 'pure art' had been created: [[Francis Picabia]] painted ''Caoutchouc'', 1909,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://francispicabia.org/?page_id=80 |title=Francis Picabia, Caoutchouc, 1909, MNAM, Paris |publisher=Francispicabia.org |date= |accessdate=2013-09-29}}</ref> ''The Spring'', 1912,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.moma.org/collection/provenance/provenance_object.php?object_id=80658 |title=Museum of Modern Art, New York, Francis Picabia, ''The Spring'', 1912 |publisher=Moma.org |date= |accessdate=2013-09-29}}</ref> ''Dances at the Spring''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.moma.org/collection/provenance/provenance_object.php?object_id=80659 |title=MoMA, New York, Francis Picabia, ''Dances at the Spring'', 1912 |publisher=Moma.org |date= |accessdate=2013-09-29}}</ref> and ''The Procession, Seville'', 1912;<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nga.gov/fcgi-bin/tinfo_f?object=92380.0&detail=none |title=National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC., Francis Picabia, The Procession, Seville, 1912 |publisher=Nga.gov |date= |accessdate=2013-09-29}}</ref> [[Wassily Kandinsky]] painted ''Untitled (First Abstract Watercolor)'', 1910,<ref>{{cite web|author=Stan Rummel |url=http://faculty.txwes.edu/csmeller/Human-Prospect/ProData09/02WW1CulMatrix/WW1PICs/Kandinsky1866/Kand1910FrstAbstr444.htm |title=Wassily Kandinsky, ''Untitled'' (First Abstract Watercolor), 1910 |publisher=Faculty.txwes.edu |date=2007-12-13 |accessdate=2013-09-29}}</ref> ''Improvisation 21A'', the ''Impression'' series, and ''Picture with a Circle'' (1911);<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.guggenheim.org/images/content/New_York/press_room/presskits/kandinsky_presskit.pdf |title=The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum, Kandinsky Retrospective, Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2009 |format=PDF |date= |accessdate=2013-09-29}}</ref> [[František Kupka]] had painted the Orphist works, ''Discs of Newton'' (Study for ''Fugue in Two Colors''), 1912<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/51038.html |title=Philadelphia Museum of Art, Disks of Newton (Study for "Fugue in Two Colors") 1912 |publisher=Philamuseum.org |date= |accessdate=2013-09-29}}</ref> and ''Amorpha, Fugue en deux couleurs'' (''Fugue in Two Colors''), 1912; [[Robert Delaunay]] painted a series entitled ''Simultaneous Windows'' and ''Formes Circulaires, Soleil n°2'' (1912–13);<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.centrepompidou.fr/education/ressources/ens-futurisme2008/ENS-futurisme2008-10-orphisme.html |title=Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Robert Delaunay, ''Formes Circulaires, Soleil n°2'' (1912–13) |language=fr |publisher=Centrepompidou.fr |date= |accessdate=2013-09-29}}</ref> [[Léopold Survage]] created ''Colored Rhythm'' (Study for the film), 1913;<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A5735&page_number=&template_id=6&sort_order=1 |title=Museum of Modern Art, New York, Léopold Survage, Colored Rhythm (Study for the film) 1913 |publisher=Moma.org |date=1914-07-15 |accessdate=2013-09-29}}</ref> [[Piet Mondrian]], painted ''Tableau No. 1'' and ''Composition No. 11'', 1913.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kmm.nl/collection-search.php?reload=1&characteristic_type=Painting&artist=Piet+Mondriaan+%281872+-+1944%29&van=0&tot=0&submit.x=51&submit.y=5 |title=Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, Netherlands, Piet Mondrian, 1913 |publisher=Kmm.nl |date= |accessdate=2013-09-29}}</ref> |
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[[Image:Kandinsky white.jpg|thumb|[[Wassily Kandinsky]], ''On White 2'', 1923]] |
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And the search continued: The [[Rayonism|Rayist]] (Luchizm) drawings of [[Natalia Goncharova]] and [[Mikhail Larionov]], used lines like rays of light to make a construction. [[Kasimir Malevich]] completed his first entirely abstract work, the [[Suprematist]], 'Black Square', in 1915. Another of the Suprematist group' [[Liubov Popova]], created the Architectonic Constructions and Spatial Force Constructions between 1916 and 1921. [[Piet Mondrian]] was evolving his abstract language, of horizontal and vertical lines with rectangles of colour, between 1915 and 1919, Neo-Plasticism was the aesthetic which Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg and other in the group [[De Stijl]] intended to reshape the environment of the future. |
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===Music=== |
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As visual art becomes more abstract, it develops some characteristics of music: an art form which uses the abstract elements of sound and divisions of time. [[Wassily Kandinsky]], himself a musician, was inspired by the possibility of marks and associative color ''resounding in the soul.'' The idea had been put forward by [[Charles Baudelaire]], that all our senses respond to various stimuli but the senses are connected at a deeper aesthetic level. |
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Closely related to this, is the idea that art has ''The spiritual dimension'' and can transcend 'every-day' experience, reaching a spiritual plane. The [[Theosophical Society]] popularised the ancient wisdom of the sacred books of India and China in the early years of the century. It was in this context that [[Piet Mondrian]], [[Wassily Kandinsky]], [[Hilma af Klint]] and other artists working towards an 'objectless state' became interested in the occult as a way of creating an 'inner' object. |
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The universal and timeless shapes found in [[geometry]]: the circle, square and triangle become the spatial elements in abstract art; they are, like color, fundamental systems underlying visible reality. |
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=== Russian avant-garde === |
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[[Image:Black Square.jpg|thumb|left|[[Kazimir Malevich]], ''Black Square'', 1923, [[The Russian Museum]]]] |
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{{main|Russian avant-garde|Futurism (art)|}} |
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Many of the abstract artists in Russia became [[Constructivism (art)|Constructivists]] believing that art was no longer something remote, but life itself. The artist must become a technician, learning to use the tools and materials of modern production. ''Art into life!'' was [[Vladimir Tatlin]]'s slogan, and that of all the future Constructivists. [[Varvara Stepanova]] and Alexandre Exter and others abandoned easel painting and diverted their energies to theatre design and graphic works. |
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On the other side stood [[Kazimir Malevich]], [[Anton Pevsner]] and [[Naum Gabo]]. They argued that art was essentially a spiritual activity; to create the individual's place in the world, not to organise life in a practical, materialistic sense. Many of those who were hostile to the materialist production idea of art left Russia. Anton Pevsner went to France, Gabo went first to Berlin, then to England and finally to America. Kandinsky studied in Moscow then left for the [[Bauhaus]]. By the mid-1920s the revolutionary period (1917 to 1921) when artists had been free to experiment was over; and by the 1930s only [[socialist realism]] was allowed.<ref>Camilla Gray, ''The Russian Experiment in Art, 1863–1922'', Thames and Hudson, 1962</ref> |
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=== The Bauhaus === |
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The Bauhaus at Weimar, Germany was founded in 1919 by [[Walter Gropius]].<ref>Walter Gropius et al., ''Bauhaus 1919–1928'', Museum of Modern Art, 1938</ref> The philosophy underlying the teaching program was unity of all the visual and plastic arts from architecture and painting to weaving and stained glass. This philosophy had grown from the ideas of the [[Arts and Crafts movement]] in England and the [[Deutscher Werkbund]]. Among the teachers were [[Paul Klee]], [[Wassily Kandinsky]], [[Johannes Itten]], [[Josef Albers]], [[Anni Albers]], [[Theo van Doesburg]] and [[László Moholy-Nagy]]. In 1925 the school was moved to Dessau and, as the [[Nazi party]] gained control in 1932, The Bauhaus was closed. In 1937 an exhibition of [[degenerate art]], 'Entartete Kunst' contained all types of [[avant-garde]] art disapproved of by the Nazi party. Then the exodus began: not just from the Bauhaus but from Europe in general; to Paris, London and America. Paul Klee went to Switzerland but many of the artists at the Bauhaus went to America. |
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=== Abstraction in Paris and London === |
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[[Image:DasUndbild.jpg|thumb|[[Kurt Schwitters]], ''Das Undbild'', 1919, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart]] |
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During the 1930s Paris became the host to artists from Russia, Germany, the Netherlands and other European countries affected by the rise of [[totalitarianism]]. [[Sophie Tauber]] and [[Jean Arp]] collaborated on paintings and sculpture using organic/geometric forms. The Polish [[Katarzyna Kobro]] applied mathematically based ideas to sculpture. The many types of abstraction now in close proximity led to attempts by artists to analyse the various conceptual and aesthetic groupings. An exhibition by forty-six members of the [[Cercle et Carré]] group organised by [[Joaquin Torres-Garcia]]<ref>{{cite book|last1=Seuphor|first1=Michel|title=Geometric Abstraccion 1926-1949|date=1972|publisher=Dallas Museum of Fine Arts}}</ref> assisted by [[Michel Seuphor]]<ref>Michel Seuphor, ''Abstract Painting''</ref> contained work by the Neo-Plasticists as well as abstractionists as varied as Kandinsky, Anton Pevsner and [[Kurt Schwitters]]. Criticised by [[Theo van Doesburg]] to be too indefinite a collection he published the journal ''Art Concret'' setting out a manifesto defining an abstract art in which the line, color and surface only, are the concrete reality.<ref>Anna Moszynska, ''Abstract Art'', p.104, Thames and Hudson, 1990</ref> Abstraction-Création founded in 1931 as a more open group, provided a point of reference for abstract artists, as the political situation worsened in 1935, and artists again regrouped, many in London. The first exhibition of British abstract art was held in England in 1935. The following year the more international ''Abstract and Concrete'' exhibition was organised by [[Nicolete Gray]] including work by [[Piet Mondrian]], [[Joan Miró]], [[Barbara Hepworth]] and [[Ben Nicholson]]. Hepworth, Nicholson and Gabo moved to the [[St. Ives group]] in Cornwall to continue their 'constructivist' work.<ref>Anna Moszynska, ''Abstract Art'', Thames and Hudson, 1990</ref> |
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=== America: mid-century === |
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{{main|Modernism|Late modernism|American Modernism|Surrealism|}} |
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[[File:Piet Mondriaan, 1939-1942 - Composition 10.jpg|thumb|left|The above is a 1939–42 oil on canvas painting by Mondrian titled ''"Composition No. 10"''. Responding to it, fellow [[De Stijl]] artist [[Theo van Doesburg]] suggested a link between non-representational works of art and ideals of peace and spirituality.<ref>Utopian Reality: Reconstructing Culture in Revolutionary Russia and Beyond; Christina Lodder, Maria Kokkori, Maria Mileeva; BRILL, Oct 24, 2013 ''"Van Doesburg stated that the purpose of art was to imbue man with those positive spiritual qualities that were needed in order to overcome the dominance of the physical and create the conditions for putting an end to wars. In an enthusiastic essay on Wassily Kandinsky he had written about the dialogue between the artist and the viewer, and the role of art as 'the educator of our inner life, the educator of our hearts and minds'. Van Doesburg subsequently adopted the view that the spiritual in man is nurtured specifically by abstract art, which he later described as 'pure thought, which does not signify a concept derived from natural phenomena but which is contained in numbers, measures, relationships, and abstract lines'. In his response to Piet Mondrian's Composition 10, Van Doesburg linked peace and the spiritual to a non-representational work of art, asserting that 'it produces a most spiritual impression…the impression of repose: the repose of the soul'."''</ref>]] |
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During the Nazi rise to power in the 1930s many artists fled Europe to the United States. By the early 1940s the main movements in modern art, expressionism, cubism, abstraction, [[surrealism]], and [[dada]] were represented in New York: [[Marcel Duchamp]], [[Fernand Léger]], [[Piet Mondrian]], [[Jacques Lipchitz]], [[André Masson]], [[Max Ernst]], [[André Breton]], were just a few of the exiled Europeans who arrived in New York.<ref>Gillian Naylor, ''The Bauhaus'', Studio Vista, 1968</ref> The rich cultural influences brought by the European artists were distilled and built upon by local New York painters. The climate of freedom in New York allowed all of these influences to flourish. The art galleries that primarily had focused on European art began to notice the local art community and the work of younger American artists who had begun to mature. Certain artists at this time became distinctly abstract in their mature work. During this period Piet Mondrian's painting ''Composition No. 10'', 1939–1942, characterized by primary colors, white ground and black grid lines clearly defined his radical but classical approach to the rectangle and abstract art in general. |
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Some artists of the period defied categorization, such as [[Georgia O'Keeffe]] who, while a modernist abstractionist, was a pure maverick in that she painted highly abstract forms while not joining any specific group of the period. |
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Eventually American artists who were working in a great diversity of styles began to coalesce into cohesive stylistic groups. The best known group of American artists became known as the [[Abstract expressionists]] and the [[New York School (art)|New York School]]. In New York City there was an atmosphere which encouraged discussion and there was new opportunity for learning and growing. Artists and teachers [[John D. Graham]] and [[Hans Hofmann]] became important bridge figures between the newly arrived European Modernists and the younger American artists coming of age. [[Mark Rothko]], born in Russia, began with strongly surrealist imagery which later dissolved into his powerful color compositions of the early 1950s. The [[action painting|expressionistic gesture]] and the act of painting itself, became of primary importance to [[Jackson Pollock]] and [[Franz Kline]]. While during the 1940s [[Arshile Gorky]]'s and [[Willem de Kooning]]'s figurative work evolved into abstraction by the end of the decade. New York City became the center, and artists worldwide gravitated towards it; from other places in America as well.<ref>[[Henry Geldzahler]], ''New York Painting and Sculpture: 1940–1970'', Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, 1969</ref> |
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== Abstraction in the 21st century == |
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{{main|Abstract expressionism|Color field|Lyrical abstraction|Post-painterly abstraction|Sculpture|Minimal art|}} |
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A commonly held idea is that [[Cultural pluralism|pluralism]] characterizes art at the beginning of the 21st century. There is no consensus, nor need there be, as to a representative style of the age. There is an ''anything goes'' attitude that prevails; an "everything going on", and consequently "nothing going on" syndrome; this creates an aesthetic traffic jam with no firm and clear direction and with every lane on the artistic [[superhighway]] filled to capacity. Consequently, magnificent and important works of art continue to be made albeit in a wide variety of styles and aesthetic temperaments, the marketplace being left to judge merit. |
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[[Digital art]], [[computer art]], [[internet art]], [[hard-edge painting]], [[geometric abstraction]], [[appropriation (art)|appropriation]], [[hyperrealism]], [[photorealism]], [[expressionism]], [[minimalism]], [[lyrical abstraction]], pop art, op art, abstract expressionism, color field painting, [[monochrome painting]], [[neo-expressionism]], [[collage]], [[decollage]], [[intermedia]], [[assemblage (art)|assemblage]], [[digital painting]], [[postmodern]] art, neo-Dada painting, [[shaped canvas]] painting, environmental [[mural painting]], [[graffiti]], [[figure painting]], [[landscape painting]], [[portrait painting]], are a few continuing and current directions at the beginning of the 21st century. |
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Into the 21st century abstraction remains very much in view, its main themes: ''the transcendental'', ''the contemplative'' and ''the timeless'' are exempified by [[Barnett Newman]], [[John McLaughlin (artist)|John McLaughlin]], and [[Agnes Martin]] as well as younger living artists. ''Art as Object'' as seen in the [[Minimalist]] sculpture of [[Donald Judd]] and the paintings of [[Frank Stella]] are still seen today in newer permutations. The poetic, [[Lyrical Abstraction]] and the sensuous use of color seen in the work of painters as diverse as [[Robert Motherwell]], [[Patrick Heron]], [[Kenneth Noland]], [[Sam Francis]], [[Cy Twombly]], [[Richard Diebenkorn]], [[Helen Frankenthaler]], [[Joan Mitchell]], among others. |
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There was a resurgence after the war and into the 1950s of the figurative, as [[neo-Dada]], [[fluxus]], [[happening]], [[conceptual art]], [[neo-expressionism]], [[installation art]], [[performance art]], [[video art]] and [[pop art]] have come to signify the age of consumerism. The distinction between abstract and figurative art has, over the last twenty years, become less defined leaving a wider range of ideas for all artists. |
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==Causation== |
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One socio-historical explanation that has been offered for the growing prevalence of the abstract in modern art – an explanation linked to the name of [[Theodor W. Adorno]] – is that such abstraction is a response to, and a reflection of, the growing abstraction of social relations in [[industrial society]].<ref>David Cunningham, 'Asceticism Against Colour', in ''New Formations'' 55 (2005) p. 110</ref> |
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[[Frederic Jameson]] similarly sees modernist abstraction as a function of the abstract power of money, equating all things equally as exchange-values.<ref>M. Hardt/K. Weeks eds., ''The Jameson Reader'' (2000) p. 272</ref> The social ''content'' of abstract art is then precisely the abstract nature of social existence – legal formalities, bureaucratic impersonalisation, information/power – in the world of [[late modernity]].<ref>Cunningham, p. 114</ref> |
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[[Analytical psychology#Post-Jungian approaches|Post-Jungians]] by contrast would see the quantum theories with their disintegration of conventional ideas of form and matter as underlying the divorce of the concrete and the abstract in modern art.<ref>Aniela Jaffé, in C. G. Jung ed., ''Man and his Symbols'' (1978) p. 303 and p. 288-9</ref> |
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==Gallery== |
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<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="4"> |
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File:Albert Gleizes, 1910-12, Les Arbres, oil on canvas, 41 x 27 cm. Reproduced in Du "Cubisme", 1912.jpg|[[Albert Gleizes]], 1910–12, ''Les Arbres (The Trees)'', oil on canvas, 41 x 27 cm. Reproduced in ''[[Du "Cubisme"]]'', 1912 |
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File:Arthur Dove, 1911-12, Based on Leaf Forms and Spaces, pastel on unidentified support. Now lost.jpg|[[Arthur Dove]], 1911–12, ''Based on Leaf Forms and Spaces'', pastel on unidentified support. Now lost |
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File:Francis Picabia, 1912, Tarentelle, oil on canvas, 73.6 x 92.1 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York.jpg|[[Francis Picabia]], 1912, ''Tarentelle'', oil on canvas, 73.6 x 92.1 cm, [[Museum of Modern Art]], New York. Reproduced in ''[[Du "Cubisme"]]'' |
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File:Vassily Kandinsky, 1912 - Improvisation 27, Garden of Love II.jpg|[[Wassily Kandinsky]], 1912, ''Improvisation 27'' (''Garden of Love'' II), oil on canvas, 47 3/8 x 55 1/4 in. (120.3 x 140.3 cm), The [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]], New York. Exhibited at the 1913 [[Armory Show]] |
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File:Pablo Picasso, 1913-14, Head (Tête), cut and pasted colored paper, gouache and charcoal on paperboard, 43.5 x 33 cm, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.jpg|[[Pablo Picasso]], 1913–14, ''Head'' (''Tête''), cut and pasted colored paper, gouache and charcoal on paperboard, 43.5 x 33 cm, [[Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art]], Edinburgh |
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File:Porte-Fenetre a Collioure 1914.jpg|[[Henri Matisse]], 1914, ''French Window at Collioure'', [[Centre Georges Pompidou]], Paris |
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File:Joseph Csaky, Deux figures, 1920, relief, limestone, polychrome, 80 cm, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Holland.jpg|[[Joseph Csaky]], ''Deux figures'', 1920, relief, limestone, polychrome, 80 cm, [[Kröller-Müller Museum]], Otterlo |
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File:Albert Gleizes, 1921, Composition bleu et jaune (Composition jaune), oil on canvas, 200.5 x 110 cm DSC00547.jpg|[[Albert Gleizes]], 1921, ''Composition bleu et jaune'' (''Composition jaune''), oil on canvas, 200.5 x 110 cm |
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File:Fire in the Evening.JPG|[[Paul Klee]], ''Fire in the Evening'', 1929 |
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File:Piet Mondrian - Lozenge Composition with Yellow, Black, Blue, Red, and Gray - 1921 - The Art Institute of Chicago.jpg|[[Piet Mondrian]], ''Composition with Yellow, Black, Blue, Red, and Gray'', 1921, [[Art Institute of Chicago]] |
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<!-- Unsourced image removed: Image:gabo.jpg|''Linear construction'' by [[Naum Gabo]] --> |
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File:Newman-Onement 1.jpg|[[Barnett Newman]], ''Onement 1'', 1948, [[Museum of Modern Art]], New York |
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File:Leger railway crossing.jpg|[[Fernand Léger]] 1919, ''The Railway Crossing'', oil on canvas, 53.8 x 64.8 cm, [[The Art Institute of Chicago]] |
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Image:Theo van Doesburg Composition VII (the three graces).jpg|[[Theo van Doesburg]], [[Neo-Plasticism]]: 1917, ''Composition VII'' (''The Three Graces'') |
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</gallery> |
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==See also== |
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{{Columns-list|3| |
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*[[Abstract expressionism]] |
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*[[Abstraction#Abstraction in art|Abstraction in art]] |
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*[[Action painting]] |
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*[[American Abstract Artists]] |
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*[[Art history]] |
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*[[Art periods]] |
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*[[Asemic writing]] |
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*[[Concrete art]] |
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*[[De Stijl]] |
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*[[Geometric abstraction]] |
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*[[Hard-edge]] |
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*[[History of painting]] |
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*[[Lyrical abstraction]] |
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*[[Op Art]] |
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*[[Representation (arts)]] |
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*[[Spatialism]] |
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*[[Western painting]] |
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}} |
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==References== |
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{{reflist|colwidth=30em}} |
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==Sources== |
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# {{note|Compton}} {{cite book | author=Compton, Susan | title=The World Backwards: Russian Futurist Books 1912–16 | publisher=The British Library | year=1978 | isbn=0-7141-0396-9}} |
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# {{note|StangosThamesHudson}} {{cite book | author=Stangos, Nikos (editor) | title=Concepts of Modern Art | publisher=Thames and Hudson | year=1981 | isbn=0-500-20186-2}} |
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# {{note|Gooding}} {{cite book | author=Gooding, Mel | title=Abstract Art (Movements in Modern Art series) | publisher=Tate Publishing | year=2001 | isbn=1-85437-302-1}} |
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== External links == |
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{{Commons category|Abstract art}} |
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*[http://www.moma.org/collection/theme.php?theme_id=10946 The term ''"Abstraction"'' spoken about at Museum of Modern Art by Nelson Goodman of Grove Art Online] |
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*[http://www.americanabstractartists.org/ American Abstract Artists] |
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*[http://the-artists.org/Non-Figurative-Art/ Non Figurative Art explained] |
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</noinclude> |
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{{Abstract art}} |
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{{Geometric abstraction}} |
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Abstract Art}} |
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[[Category:Art movements]] |
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[[Category:Modern art]] |
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[[Category:Abstract art| ]] |
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[[Category:Painting]] |
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