abstract art
art that does not depict recognizable
scenes or objects, but instead is made up of forms and colours that
exist for their own expressive sake. much decorative art can thus be
described as abstract, but in normal usage the term refers to modern
painting and sculpture that abandon the traditional european
conception of art as the imitation of nature. abstract art in this
sense was born and achieved its distinctive identity in the decade
1910–20 and is now regarded as the most characteristic form of 20th
century art. it has developed into many different movements and
‘isms’, but two or three basic tendencies are recognizable. in
cubism and abstract art (1936), alfred h. barr, ‘at the risk of
grave oversimplification’, divided abstraction into two main
currents: the first (represented by malevich) he described as
‘intellectual, structural, architectonic, geometrical, rectilinear
and classical in its austerity and dependence upon logic and
calculation’; the second (exemplified by kandinsky) he described as
‘intuitional and emotional rather than intellectual; organic or
biomorphic rather than geometrical in its forms; curvilinear rather
than rectilinear, decorative rather than structural, and romantic
rather than classical in its exaltation of the mystical, the
spontaneous and the irrational’. looking at the subject in a
slightly different way (and from a later viewpoint than barr's), it
is possible to see three main strands in abstract art:
1.
the reduction of natural appearances to radically simplified forms,
exemplified in the sculpture of brancusi (one meaning of the verb
‘abstract’ is to summarize or concentrate);
2. the
construction of works of art from non-representational basic forms
(often simple geometric shapes), as in ben nicholson's reliefs;
3. spontaneous, ‘free’ expression, as in the action painting of
jackson pollock. many exponents of such art dislike the word
‘abstract’ (arp, for example, hated it, insisting on the word
‘concrete’), but the alternatives they prefer, although perhaps more
precise, are usually cumbersome, notably non-figurative,
non-representational, and non-objective.
the basic
aesthetic premiss of abstract art—that formal qualities can be
thought of as existing independently of subject matter—existed long
before the 20th century. ultimately the idea can be traced back to
plato, who in his dialogue philebus (c.350 bc) puts the following
words into socrates' mouth: ‘i do not mean by beauty of form such
beauty as that of animals and pictures…but understand me to mean
straight lines and circles, and the plane or solid figures which are
formed out of them by turning-lathes and rulers and measures of
angles; for these i affirm to be not only relatively beautiful, like
other things, but eternally and absolutely beautiful.’ more
explicitly, in his tenth discourse (1780) to the students of the
royal academy, sir joshua reynolds advised that ‘we are sure from
experience that the beauty of form alone, without the assistance of
any other quality, makes of itself a great work, and justly claims
our esteem and admiration’; and in discussing the belvedere torso he
referred to ‘the perfection of this science of abstract form’.
several notable critics followed this line in the 19th century. in
1846, for example, charles baudelaire wrote that ‘painting is
interesting only in virtue of line and colour’; in 1890 in a much
quoted remark maurice denis said: ‘remember that a picture—before
being a war horse or a nude woman or an anecdote is essentially a
flat surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order’; and
in 1896 george santayana, after noting that colour may produce
unpleasant as well as pleasant effects, ‘almost like a musical
discord’, proposed that ‘a more general development of this
sensibility would make possible a new abstract art, an art that
should deal with colours as music does with sound’ (the analogy with
music was often pursued; whistler, for example, sometimes gave his
paintings pseudo musical titles, as later did kandinsky, kupka, and
other artists, including the lithuanian composer painter m. k.
Čiurlionis (1875–1911)). many of the leading painters of the 1890s
notably the symbolists stressed the expressive properties of colour,
line, and shape rather than their representative function, and this
process was taken further by the major avant garde movements of the
first decade of the 20th century especially cubism, expressionism,
and fauvism.
by 1910, then, the time was ripe for
abstract art, and it developed more or less simultaneously in
various countries. kandinsky is often cited as the first person to
paint an abstract picture, but no artist can in fact be singled out
for the distinction. (a work by kandinsky known as ‘first abstract
watercolour’ (pompidou centre, paris) is signed and dated 1910, but
some scholars believe that it is later and was inscribed by
kandinsky several years after its execution. this kind of problem
arises not only with kandinsky: several early abstract artists were
keen to stress the primacy of their ideas and were not above
backdating works.) among the other artists who produced abstract
paintings at about the same early date as kandinsky were the
american arthur dove and the swiss augusto giacometti, cousin of
alberto giacometti.
the individual pioneers were
soon followed by abstract groups and movements among the first were
orphism and synchromism in france. there was a particularly rich
crop in russia, with constructivism, rayonism, and suprematism all
launched by 1915. with some artists, abstraction represented merely
a brief phase in their careers (among them the british artists
vanessa bell, duncan grant, and wyndham lewis), but with others it
was a vocation or even a mission. the almost religious fervour with
which some of the russian artists pursued their ideals was matched
by the members of the de stijl group in holland, founded in 1917. to
such artists, abstraction was not simply a matter of style, but a
question of finding a visual idiom capable of expressing their most
deeply felt ideas. mondrian, for example, believed that his art of
clarity and balance would lead to a society in which life would be
governed by a universal visual harmony.
in the
period between the two world wars, the severely geometrical style of
de stijl and the technologically orientated constructivism were the
most influential currents in abstraction (they came together in the
bauhaus). paris was the main centre of abstract art at this time,
partly because it attracted so many refugee artists from germany and
russia, where abstract art was banned in the 1930s under hitler and
stalin. there was also a strong abstract element in surrealism,
which was born in paris. the first exhibition devoted solely to
abstract art was held there by the cercle et carré group in 1930,
and its successor, the abstraction-création association, founded in
1931, brought together a large number of abstract artists of various
types and provided a focus for their activities. however, in general
figurative art was dominant in the inter-war period and abstract art
won little public acceptance. it was very much a minority taste in
britain and the usa, for example, in spite of such outstanding
individual contributions as the sculptures of hepworth and calder
and the efforts of groups such as unit one (founded in 1933) and
american abstract artists (founded in 1936).
the
second heroic period of abstract art came after the second world
war, when the enormous success of abstract expressionism in the usa
and its european equivalent art informel made abstraction for a time
virtually the dominant orthodoxy in western art. abstract art no
longer seemed to need philosophical justification of the kind given
by kandinsky and mondrian (although several of the abstract
expressionists were equally high-minded in approach); however,
abstraction was sometimes invested with a moral dimension as an
embodiment of western freedom of thought, as opposed to the
totalitarianism that had banned avant garde art in nazi germany and
soviet russia (see degenerate art and socialist realism). in this
respect it is significant that many of the abstract expressionists
were influenced by european surrealists who had fled to new york
during the second world war to escape the fear of such repression.
thus, in the usa particularly, support for abstract art could be
regarded almost as a form of patriotism. abstract expressionism
represented a great watershed in art and many later developments
were either evolutions from it or reactions against it. these
included a revival of figuration, in the form particularly of pop
art, but also new styles of abstraction, including post painterly
abstraction, op art, and minimal art, all of which flourished in the
1960s.
