Abstract Art and Painting
Western art history, the break from the notion that a painting had to represent something happened in the early 20th century. Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism and other art movements of the time all contributed by breaking the "rules" of art followed since The Renaissance. Impressionism saw painters not "finishing" their paintings. The Fauvists used colour in a non-realistic way. Cubism introduced the idea of painting an object from more than one view point. From all of these the idea developed that colour, line, form, and texture could be the "subject" of the painting.
Abstract Expressionism, which emerged in the 1940s, applied the principles of Expressionism to abstract painting. The action painting of Jackson Pollock, in which paint was dripped, dropped, smeared, spattered, or thrown on the canvas, is a good example In 1864 the critic Ernest Chesneau wrote that if the trend the Impressionists were setting continued, paintings would eventually consist of nothing but "two broadly brushed areas of colour". What would he have thought of the art being produced 100 years later? Digital art, Computer art, Internet art, Hard-edge painting, Geometric abstraction, Appropriation, Hyperrealism, Photorealism, Expressionism, Minimalism, Lyrical Abstraction, Pop art, Op art, Abstract Expressionism, Color Field painting, Monochrome painting, Neo-expressionism, Collage, Intermedia painting, Assemblage painting, Digital painting, Postmodern painting, Neo-Dada painting, Shaped canvas painting, environmental mural painting, Graffiti, traditional figure painting, Landscape painting, Portrait painting, are a few continuing and current directions at the beginning of the 21st century.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, 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. There was a resurgence after the war and into the 1950s of the figurative, as Neo-Dada, Fluxus, 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. Abstract expressionism has many stylistic similarities to the Russian artists of the early twentieth century such as Wassily Kandinsky. Although it is true that spontaneity or the impression of spontaneity characterized many of the abstract expressionists works, most of these paintings involved careful planning, especially since their large size demanded it. With artists like Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Emma Kunz, and later on Rothko, Barnett Newman, John McLaughlin, and Agnes Martin, abstract art clearly implied expression of ideas concerning the spiritual, the unconscious and the mind. Why this style gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s is a matter of debate. American social realism had been the mainstream in the 1930s. It had been influenced not only by the Great Depression but also by the muralists of Mexico such as David Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera. The political climate after World War II did not long tolerate the social protests of these painters. Abstract expressionism arose during World War II and began to be showcased during the early forties at galleries in New York like The Art of This Century Gallery. The McCarthy era after World War II was a time of artistic censorship in the United States, but if the subject matter were totally abstract then it would be seen as apolitical, and therefore safe. Or if the art was political, the message was largely for the insiders.
While the movement is closely associated with painting, and painters like Arshile Gorky, Franz Kline, Clyfford Still, Hans Hofmann, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and others, collagist Anne Ryan and sculpture and certain sculptors in particular were also integral to Abstract Expressionism.[5] David Smith, and his wife Dorothy Dehner, Herbert Ferber, Isamu Noguchi, Ibram Lassaw, Theodore Roszak, Phillip Pavia, Mary Callery, Richard Stankiewicz, Louise Bourgeois, and Louise Nevelson in particular were some of the sculptors considered as being important members of the movement. In addition, the artists David Hare, John Chamberlain, James Rosati, Mark di Suvero, and sculptors Richard Lippold, Herbert Ferber, Raoul Hague, George Rickey, Reuben Nakian, and even Tony Smith, Seymour Lipton, Joseph Cornell, and several others [6] were integral parts of the Abstract expressionist movement. Many of the sculptors listed participated in the Ninth Street Show[6] the famous exhibition curated by Leo Castelli on East Ninth Street in New York City in 1951. Besides the painters and sculptors of the period the New York School of Abstract expressionism also generated a number of supportive poets, like Frank O'Hara and photographers like Aaron Siskind and Fred McDarrah, (whose book The Artist's World in Pictures documented the New York School during the 1950s), and filmmakers notably Robert Frank as well.
abstract Contemporary
Today oil painting seems to be the favourite medium of fewer and few fewer artists. Many feel that fast drying acrylics better meets the requirements of an impatient contemporary artist. Personally I find that the versatile, slow-drying medium of abstract oil painting is tremendously well suited to explore and express the contemporary human predicament - a flux and a process rather than something static or unequivocal.
Abstract Expressionism, which emerged in the 1940s, applied the principles of Expressionism to abstract painting. The action painting of Jackson Pollock, in which paint was dripped, dropped, smeared, spattered, or thrown on the canvas, is a good example In 1864 the critic Ernest Chesneau wrote that if the trend the Impressionists were setting continued, paintings would eventually consist of nothing but "two broadly brushed areas of colour". What would he have thought of the art being produced 100 years later? Digital art, Computer art, Internet art, Hard-edge painting, Geometric abstraction, Appropriation, Hyperrealism, Photorealism, Expressionism, Minimalism, Lyrical Abstraction, Pop art, Op art, Abstract Expressionism, Color Field painting, Monochrome painting, Neo-expressionism, Collage, Intermedia painting, Assemblage painting, Digital painting, Postmodern painting, Neo-Dada painting, Shaped canvas painting, environmental mural painting, Graffiti, traditional figure painting, Landscape painting, Portrait painting, are a few continuing and current directions at the beginning of the 21st century.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, 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. There was a resurgence after the war and into the 1950s of the figurative, as Neo-Dada, Fluxus, 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. Abstract expressionism has many stylistic similarities to the Russian artists of the early twentieth century such as Wassily Kandinsky. Although it is true that spontaneity or the impression of spontaneity characterized many of the abstract expressionists works, most of these paintings involved careful planning, especially since their large size demanded it. With artists like Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Emma Kunz, and later on Rothko, Barnett Newman, John McLaughlin, and Agnes Martin, abstract art clearly implied expression of ideas concerning the spiritual, the unconscious and the mind. Why this style gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s is a matter of debate. American social realism had been the mainstream in the 1930s. It had been influenced not only by the Great Depression but also by the muralists of Mexico such as David Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera. The political climate after World War II did not long tolerate the social protests of these painters. Abstract expressionism arose during World War II and began to be showcased during the early forties at galleries in New York like The Art of This Century Gallery. The McCarthy era after World War II was a time of artistic censorship in the United States, but if the subject matter were totally abstract then it would be seen as apolitical, and therefore safe. Or if the art was political, the message was largely for the insiders.
While the movement is closely associated with painting, and painters like Arshile Gorky, Franz Kline, Clyfford Still, Hans Hofmann, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and others, collagist Anne Ryan and sculpture and certain sculptors in particular were also integral to Abstract Expressionism.[5] David Smith, and his wife Dorothy Dehner, Herbert Ferber, Isamu Noguchi, Ibram Lassaw, Theodore Roszak, Phillip Pavia, Mary Callery, Richard Stankiewicz, Louise Bourgeois, and Louise Nevelson in particular were some of the sculptors considered as being important members of the movement. In addition, the artists David Hare, John Chamberlain, James Rosati, Mark di Suvero, and sculptors Richard Lippold, Herbert Ferber, Raoul Hague, George Rickey, Reuben Nakian, and even Tony Smith, Seymour Lipton, Joseph Cornell, and several others [6] were integral parts of the Abstract expressionist movement. Many of the sculptors listed participated in the Ninth Street Show[6] the famous exhibition curated by Leo Castelli on East Ninth Street in New York City in 1951. Besides the painters and sculptors of the period the New York School of Abstract expressionism also generated a number of supportive poets, like Frank O'Hara and photographers like Aaron Siskind and Fred McDarrah, (whose book The Artist's World in Pictures documented the New York School during the 1950s), and filmmakers notably Robert Frank as well.
abstract Contemporary
Today oil painting seems to be the favourite medium of fewer and few fewer artists. Many feel that fast drying acrylics better meets the requirements of an impatient contemporary artist. Personally I find that the versatile, slow-drying medium of abstract oil painting is tremendously well suited to explore and express the contemporary human predicament - a flux and a process rather than something static or unequivocal.
