It is human nature to sort things out, find everything and give a name to everything. This can be especially difficult to do in art, where talent is such a category that it is not possible to squeeze a person or a whole direction into a cell of a general ordered catalog. Abstract art is just such a concept. They have been arguing about him for more than a century.
Abstractio - distraction, separation
The expressive means of painting are line, shape, color. If you separate them from unnecessary values, links and associations, they will become ideal, absolute. Even Plato spoke of the true, correct beauty of straight lines and geometric shapes. The lack of analogy between the depicted and real objects opens the way for the influence on the viewer of something else unknown, inaccessible to ordinary consciousness. The artistic value of the painting itself should be higher than the importance of what it depicts, because talented painting gives rise to a new sensual world.
This is how reformers thought. For them, abstractionism is a way of searching for new artistic methods that have unprecedented power.
New Age - New Art
Art historians argue about what abstractionism is. Art historians eagerly defend their point of view, filling in the white spots in the history of abstract painting. But the majority agreed with the time of his birth: in 1910 in Munich, Vasily Kandinsky (1866-1944) exhibited his work “Untitled. (First abstract watercolor). "
Soon Kandinsky in the book "On the spiritual in art" proclaimed the philosophy of a new trend.
The main thing is the impression
Do not think that abstractionism in painting arose from scratch. Impressionists showed a new meaning of color and light in painting. At the same time, the role of linear perspective, exact observance of proportions, etc., has become less. All the leading masters of that time fell under the influence of this style.
The landscapes of James Whistler (1834-1903), his “nocturnes” and “symphonies”, are surprisingly reminiscent of the masterpieces of abstract expressionist artists. By the way, Whistler and Kandinsky had synesthesia - the ability to endow colors with sound of a certain property. And the colors on their works sound like music.
In the works of Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), especially in the late period of his work, the shape of the object is modified, gaining expressiveness of a special kind. No wonder Cezanne is called the forerunner of cubism.
General forward movement
Abstractionism in art took shape in a single course in the course of the general progress of civilization. The intellectuals were excited by new theories in philosophy and psychology, artists were looking for connections between the spiritual world and the material, personality and space. So, Kandinsky in his justifications for the theory of abstraction is based on ideas expressed in theosophical books of Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891).
Fundamental discoveries in physics, chemistry, and biology changed ideas about the world, about the power of human influence on nature. Technological progress has reduced the scale of the earth, the scale of the universe.
With the rapid development of photography, many artists decided to give it a documentary function. They argued: the business of painting is not to copy, but to create a new reality.
Abstract art is a revolution. And talented people with sensitive mental attitudes felt: the time for social change was coming. They were not mistaken. The twentieth century began and continued with unprecedented upheavals in the life of all civilization.
Founding Fathers
Along with Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935) and Dutchman Pete Mondrian (1872-1944) stood at the origins of the new trend.
Who does not know the "Black Square" Malevich? Since its appearance in 1915, it excites both professionals and ordinary people. Some see it as a dead end, others as a simple outrage. But all the work of the master speaks of opening new horizons in art, of moving forward.
The theory of Suprematism (lat. Supremus - the highest), developed by Malevich, affirmed the primacy of color among other means of painting, likened the process of writing a picture to the act of Creation, “pure art” in the highest sense. The deep and external signs of Suprematism can be found in the works of modern artists, architects and designers.
Mondrian's work had the same effect on later generations. His neoplasticism is based on a generalization of form and careful use of an open, undistorted color. Straight black horizontals and verticals on a white background form a grid with cells of different sizes, and the cells are filled with local colors. The expressiveness of the master’s paintings prompted the artists to either their creative comprehension or blind copying. Artists and designers use abstractionism to create very real objects. Especially often Mondrian motifs are found in architectural projects.
Russian avant-garde - poetry of terms
Russian artists were particularly susceptible to the ideas of their compatriots - Kandinsky and Malevich. Especially organically these ideas fit into the turbulent era of the birth and formation of a new social system. The theory of Suprematism was transformed by Lyubov Popova (1889-1924) and Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956) into the practice of constructivism, which had a special impact on the new architecture. Objects built in that era are still being studied by architects around the world.
Mikhail Larionov (1881-1964) and Natalya Goncharova (1881-1962) became the founders of luchism or regionalism. They tried to display the bizarre interweaving of rays and light planes emitted by everything that fills the world.
At different times, the movement of cubo-futurists involved in poetry was attended by Alexandra Esther (1882-1949), David Burliuk (1882-1967), Olga Rozanova (1886-1918), and Nadezhda Udaltsova (1886-1961).
Abstractionism in painting has always been an expression of extreme ideas. These ideas annoyed the authorities of a totalitarian state. In the USSR, and later in fascist Germany, ideologists quickly determined what kind of art would be understood and necessary for the people, and by the beginning of the 40s of the twentieth century the center for the development of abstract art had moved to America.
Channel of one stream
Abstractionism is a rather vague definition. Everywhere, where the object of creativity has no concrete analogy in the world around, they talk about abstraction. In poetry, in music, in ballet, in architecture. In the visual arts, the forms and forms of this trend are especially diverse.
The following types of abstract art in painting can be distinguished:
- Color compositions: in the space of the canvas, color is the main thing, and the object dissolves in the game of colors (Kandinsky, Frank Kupka (1881-1957), orphist Robert Delaunay (1885-1941), Mark Rothko (1903-1970), Barnet Newman (1905- 1970)).
- Geometric abstractionism is a more intellectual, analytical form of avant-garde painting. He rejects the linear perspective and the illusion of depth, solving the question of the relationship of geometric shapes (Malevich, Mondrian, elementary elementist Theo van Dusburg (1883-1931), Josef Albers (1888-1976), follower of op-art Victor Vasarely (1906-1997).
- Expressive abstractionism - the process of creating a picture is especially important here, sometimes the way of applying paint, for example, for tashists (from tache - stain) (Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), tachist Georges Mathieu (1921-2012), Willem de Kooning (1904-1997), Robert Motherwell (1912-1956)).
- Minimalism - a return to the origins of the artistic avant-garde. Images are completely devoid of external links and associations (Frank Stella (born 1936), Sean Scully (born 1945), Ellsworth Kelly (born 1923).
Is abstractionism a thing of the past?
So what is abstractionism now? Now you can read online that abstract painting is a thing of the past. Russian avant-garde, black square - who needs it? Now is the time for speed and clear information.
Information: one of the most expensive paintings in 2006 was sold for more than 140 million dollars. It is called “No. 5.1948,” by Jackson Pollock, an expressive abstract artist.