Abstract Art
Abstract Art is a non-objective art, which does not have an accurate representation of a visual reality, but uses Forms, Colors, Textures and Gesture Marks to achieve its effect. It was born at the beginning of the 20th century and was completely radical for its time.
Some may even say that abstraction started with cave paintings from thousands of years ago, Abstract Art represents an artistic break from traditional molds, that was the main feature.
Abstract art has been around for over 100 years. Artists began to create simplified objections with little or no reference to the “real” world.
The modern abstract art that we know today can be attributed to impressionism, post-impressionism and cubism. All three helped to realize the idea that art might not be representative.
The first artist to create abstract art as we know it was Wassily Kandinsky.
He is often credited by historians as “The Father” of abstract art for creating paintings in floating, non-representational forms since 1912. His work brought abstraction to America during the Armory Show in 1913.
What are the types of Abstract Art?
- Sensitive or informal Abstractionism
- Tachisme
- Geometric Abstraction
- Action Painting
Sensitive or informal Abstractionism
Feelings and emotions predominate. Colors and shapes are created freely. In Germany comes the movement called “Der blaue Reiter” (The Blue Knight) whose founders are the Kandinsky, Franz Marc among others.
An abstract art, which puts color and shape into its greatest expressiveness.
These artists delve into chromatic research, achieving spatial and formal variations in painting, through the tones and hues obtained. They want an abstract, sensitive and emotional expressionism.
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 a unity and harmony, just like a musical work.
Best Abstract Artists:
Wassily Kandinsky 1866-1944
Russian painter, considered by many historians to be the “Father of Abstract Painting”, but before abstractionism he participated in various artistic movements such as impressionism also went through a short fauve and expressionist phase.
He wrote books, as in 1911, on the spiritual in art, in which he sought to point out symbolic correspondences between the inner impulses and the language of shapes and colors, and in 1926, from the point and the line to the surface, a more technical explanation of the construction and inventiveness of your art.
Dozens of his works were confiscated by the Nazis and several of them were exhibited in the “Degenerate Art” exhibition.
Franz Marc 1880-1916
A German painter, passionate about the art of primitive people, children and the mentally ill, Marc chose animal studies as his favorite themes, met Kandinsky, under the influence of him, convinced himself that the essence of beings is revealed in abstraction.
The admiration for Italian futurists gave a new dynamic to Marc’s work, which started to use shapes and masses of bright colors typical of Cubist painting.
Tachisme
Tachisme appeared in the post-World War II period, in Europe, with the intention of breaking with previous models of art. The movement’s name comes from the French tache, which means stain.
Formed by spots created impulsively with all the freedom or emotional effusion of the artist. Lyrical Tachismo shows luminous, transparent and spontaneous tones. Dramatic Tachism has dark, serious, passionate tones.
The paintings of that period value spontaneous gesture, the artist’s instinct at the time of production.
It is possible to imagine, when looking at the painting, the movements that the artists made. An important artist who represents this type of painting is Hans Hartung.
This type of abstraction is also called informal abstraction, in the sense that it does not have a defined shape.
The raw material used for the painting was also explored. Some artists gave more priority to gesture and others to research the material, creating textures, layers and using new materials.
Best Abstract Artists:
Jean Dubuffet 1901 – 1985
French painter who was inspired by the art of children and crazy people.
His works had irregular shapes and simple designs.
He went in search of new art forms and found what he called raw art: made by people who are not part of the artistic environment, who do not have cultural and historical references about art and seek ideas and themes within themselves, such as children, crazy and lonely people.
Geometric Abstraction
It is the geometric abstract art that had a lot of influence from the cubist and futurist movements. This is due to the use of geometric shapes and with a more rational and hard feature in the representations. Therefore, the lines and colors are organized 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 that deserve to be highlighted. Among them: Suprematism; Constructivism; Neoplasticism or De Stijl, Concretism, Neoconcretism.
Best Abstract Artists:
Piet Mondrian 1872-1944
Dutch pioneer of abstract art, who developed from the beginning of the landscape to abstract geometric works of the most rigorous type. His canvases were painted from pure, vivid colors and straight lines.
The painter’s desire was to obtain as much clarity as possible and, for that, he sought that the canvases reflected the mathematical laws of the universe. It was not by chance that the patterns of the painting were always regular, precise and stable. He moved to New York in 1940, where he began to develop a more colorful style, with colored lines. and syncopated rhythms.
Action Painting
It is production of improvised and gestural ‘drip paintings’, placing your canvas on the floor and pouring paint over it from the can or dragging it by brush or stick.
This type of painting does not have previous schemes, and appeared in New York, in the 1940s, under the influence of surrealist automatic painting processes.
Best Abstract Artists:
Jackson Pollock 1912-1956
He is an American painter, he introduced a new modality in the technique, dripping the paints that drip from punctured containers intentionally, in a fast execution, with abrupt and impetuous gestures, spraying, staining, painting the chosen surface with extraordinary and fantastic results, sometimes realized before the public.
He developed research on aromatic painting
In the last works in this line, the artist used materials such as nails, shells and pieces of canvas, mixed with the layers of paint to give relief to the texture. He often used industrial paints, many of which are used in car painting.
Willem de Kooning (1904-1997)
He was a Dutch painter who left Holland at the age of 22 on board a freighter, started his life as a carpenter and wall painter.
Unlike his avant-garde colleagues, who abolished the figurative representation of his paintings, female figures – the mark of difference in his work.
In the late 1940s, along with Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky and Mark Rothko, revolutionary American painting, founding the abstract expressionist avant-garde.
What are the characteristics of abstract art?
The main characteristics of abstractionism are:
- Opposition to the Renaissance Model and Figurative Art;
- Non-Representational Art;
- Subjective art;
- Absence of Recognizable Objects;
- Valuation of Shapes, Colors, Lines and Textures.
Abstract artworks may contain elements related to emotion, as a way of liberating the need for verisimilar representation.
Thus, the artist is not committed to transmitting reality. In this sense, another striking feature of abstract art is freedom, one that serves both the artist and the lover. In other words, he has the freedom to interpret the work as he likes, without any real commitment.
Therefore, for not having a commitment to the representation of reality, the main characteristic of abstractionism is to be a counterpoint to the concept of realistic art. Thus, abstract works are more conceptual, and depart completely from what was considered classic art.
How is Abstract Art Created?
Abstract art is an independent composition, free from representations and illustrations. In abstract art it is not simply a process of creating landscapes or objects, it is a process of exploring. It does NOT need to have a singular meaning, narrative or explanation.
In abstract art we put different colors and shapes together to create a piece that represents for each particular admirer.
Abstract art is, in essence, giving wings to an unintended inspiration, that is, that does not seek to represent or portray anything in specific.
To create an abstract picture, it takes imagination and a sense of creativity.
The main purpose of abstraction is not to tell a story, but to encourage involvement and imagination.
This art form has as main objective to provide viewers with an intangible and emotional experience, being completely different for each one, which can vary completely according to the mood, with the feeling that the particular work gives you, with your artistic repertoire at the moment.
What is the purpose of abstract art?
The main purpose of abstraction in art is not to tell a story, but to encourage involvement and imagination.
This art form has as its main objective to provide viewers with an intangible and emotional experience, being completely different for each individual, depending on their personality and mood.
Western art was, from the Renaissance until the mid-19th century, supported by the logic of perspective and an attempt to reproduce visible reality. At the end of the 19th century, many artists felt the need to create a type of art that encompassed the fundamental changes in technology, science and philosophy, they were against formal teachings and started to create art that did not necessarily refer to objects in the real world. The sources from which individual artists drew their theoretical arguments were diverse and reflected social and intellectual concerns in all areas of Western culture at the time.
The approaches found in abstract painting span many movements, including German expressionism, fauvism, cubism and abstract expressionism. Emphasizing the formal qualities of a work of art on the representational subject, abstract artists experimented with new techniques, such as the use of vivid and arbitrary colors, the reconstruction of shapes and the rejection of the realistic three-dimensional perspective.
Abstract art did not flourish between world wars I and II.
Afflicted by totalitarian politics and art movements that renewed emphasis on images, such as surrealism and socially critical realism, she received little attention. But, after World War II, an energetic American school of abstract painting, called Abstract Expressionism, emerged and had wide influence. Since the 1950s, abstract art has been an accepted and widely practiced approach in European and American painting and sculpture.
Abstract art now lives in the art world in many ways. It is two-dimensional and three-dimensional.
Abstract art can also be made with many materials and on many surfaces. Can be used in conjunction with representational or complete art. Abstract art has intrigued and indeed confused many people, but for those who have accepted its non-referential language there is no doubt about its value and its achievements. They are not significant because of the aesthetic standard of beauty or not, they are significant because in a moment in time they have introduced something new to the world.
Abstract Art in Brazil
Abstract Art began to enter Brazilian territory since the 1940s. The pioneers were Abraham Palatnik (1928), Manabu Mabe (1924-1997) and Luiz Sacilotto (1924-2003).
It started in the 1950s, influenced mainly by painters Antônio Bandeira and Cícero Dias, who after a trip to Europe returned to bring abstractionism to the country.
However, this movement in Brazil only stood out in the first edition of the Bienal de São Paulo in 1951. Therefore, a large number of artists joined this modern trend.
Who are the Artists of Brazilian Abstract Art?
Among the greatest representatives of abstract art in Brazil are names such as:
- Alfredo Volpi (1896-1988);
- Ivan Serpa (1923-1973);
- Cícero Dias (1907-2003);
- Luiz Sacilotto (1924-2003);
- Antônio Bandeira (1922-1967);
- Manabu Mabe (1924-1997);
- Tomie Ohtake (1913-2015);
- Lygia Clark (1920-1988);
- Hélio Oiticica (1937-1980);
- Iberê Camargo (1914-1994).
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Great work, thanks for posting amazing article. I always think that art abstract is so complex as a life. I feel that even a seemingly simple abstract piece can evoke a positive response and portray a sense of beauty, art doesn’t necessarily have to be immediately understood in terms of meaning.
Alysson, I also love art! Thank you for writing!Lobo
I always had difficulties understanding abstract art. this article opened my mind. thanks
Hi Erin, Glad it helped you! Thank you for writing! Lobo
Art Abstract for me, is like poetry, a mysteriously narrative. Something more elusive, poetical and imaginative rather than representational.
Hi Nikky! Thank you for writing! Lobo