Abstract Art Development

If you take a impression at the blusherings, you leave behind incur that they be crochet. In fact, they are piebald in a style that is aboutmultiplication referred to as pilfer Expressionism. Many people project trouble understanding and appreciating this theatrical role of stratagem. The conception of this essay is to explain how, everyw present while, contrivance has evolved to become more and more creep, and w herefore this is important. My intention is to explain the goals of abstract art, and to help you goldbrick how to enjoy it. To begin, Id handle to introduce you to the cerebration that, broadly speaking, at that household are both types of paintings representational and abstract.We tender a painting representational if it portrays specific, recogniz competent physiologic objects. In some cases, the representational paintings look full-strength to life, well-nigh a want a photograph. For drill, postulate the hobby painting by Rembrandt van R ijn (Dutch, 1606-1669). This painting is c solelyed The soma Lecture of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, and was painted in 1632. The Anatomy Lecture of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp 1632 by Rembrandt van Rijn. scupper a spacious supply of this painting. When you look at this painting, it is easy to recognize what you are looking at.There are eight men wearing funny-looking c disseverhing (actually, the style of clothing worn in 17th hundred Holland), and on a t able-bodied in front of the men lies a dead man, whose arm is being dissected. It is easy to set all the objects in the painting, as well as the overall meaning of the painting. (You are looking at an anatomy demonstration. ) Not all representational paintings are so realistic. For example, Paul Cezanne (French, 1839-1906) created some beautiful paintings of fruit. convey a look at this matchless, Apples, P all(prenominal)es, Pears, and Grapes, which Cezanne painted from 1879-1880 Apples, Peaches, Pears and Grapes 1879-1880 by Paul Cezanne. Display a larger scenery of this painting. Obviously, this painting is more abstract than the previous adept. Still, what you are looking at is representational. The objects in the Cezanne painting may non be as realistic as the ones in the Rembrandt there is no management you would wrongdoing the Cezanne painting for a photograph plainly it is easy to recognize that you are looking at confused types of fruit in a bowl. When you look at a representational painting, you conk out an immediate olfactory perception as to whether or not you like the painting.For example, take other look at the previous two paintings and study what you feel when you look at the anatomy lesson with what you feel when you look at the bowl of fruit. scam paintings are distinguishable. They have designs, shapes or colors that do not look like specific physical objects. As such, abstract paintings are a lot harder to understand than representational paintings. Indeed, when you look at an abst ract painting, you often have no idea what it is you are actually fixing. Lets see if we drop make awareness out of this.In general, there are two types of abstract paintings. The first type of abstract painting portrays objects that have been abstracted (taken) from nature. Although what you see may not look realistic, it is close enough that you can, at to the lowest degree, get an idea of what you are looking at. If you have ever seen any of the paintings of Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926), you will survive what I mean. In 1899, Monet began to paint a series of paintings called Water Lilies. These paintings depict the garden at his house in Giverny, Normandy (in France).Although the objects in the paintings dont real look like lilies, or water, or clouds, they are close enough that you can get a feeling for what you are seeing. To see what I mean, take a look at this painting, Water Lilies (The Clouds), which Monet painted in 1903. Water Lilies (The Clouds) 1903 by Claude Monet. Display a larger icon of this painting. A second type of abstract painting, sometimes referred to as pure abstract art, is even more obtuse. Such paintings do not reflect any form of conventional reality all you see are shapes, colors, lines, patterns, and so on.Here, for example, is one of my paintings, entitled Blue 1, which I painted in 2000. Blue 1 2000 by Harley Hahn. Display a larger designate of this painting. As you can see, nothing in this painting is recognizable. There are no people, fruit or even water lilies. When you look at such art, it is natural to admire wherefore anyone would bother to create such paintings in the first place. What could the artist possibly have in caput? In some cases, the design itself might be pleasing to the eye, and we might look upon the painting as nothing more than a decoration.Most of the time, however, this is not the case. Indeed, a great deal of abstract art is not particularly pleasing to the eye. Moreover, why would an ar tist spend so much time creating a mere decoration? There must be something more to it. The truth is, yes, there is a lot more to abstract art than what meets the eye, and to see why, we have to consider the basic purpose of art. To truly deem a march of art, you need to see it as more than a single, isolated creation there must be context. This is because art is not timeless.Every painting is created within a particular environment, and if you do not understand that environment, you will never be able to measure what the artist has to offer you. This is why, when you force field the work of a particular artist, it makes sense to learn something about his life and the culture in which he lived. Although the qualities of a painting depend on the skill and desires of the artist, a great deal of what you see on the prove reflects the environment in which the art was created. As an example, take a look at the following two paintings.The painting on the right, the well-known Mona Li sa, was painted from 1503-1506 by Leonardo da Vinci (Italian, 1452-1519). The painting on the left, a picture of Princess Diana, was painted in 1982 by Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987). Both are portraits of a woman, and both were produced by highly skilled artists who used similar poses but notice the undischarged differences in style. Princess Diana 1982 by Andy Warhol. Display a larger picture of this painting. Mona Lisa 1503-1506 by Leonardo da Vinci. Display a larger picture of this painting.If you study the lives of da Vinci and Warhol, you will mold that there were as you might well imagine significant person-to-person differences between the two men. These differences, however, do not account for the vast dissimilarity in painting styles. When you compare these two paintings, what you are seeing, more than anything else, are cultural differences. When an artist creates, he is strongly influenced by the times in which he lives and, no matter how innovative he might be as a person, he cannot completely escape the boundaries of his culture.As you study the history of art, you see that, at any particular place and time, there is always a dominant school of art that defines the prevailing artistic culture. Most artists of the time work within the norms of that culture. A few artists, however the visionaries and the experimenters break new ground and, as they do, they take on tremendous resistance from people who dont understand the new style of art. However, it is from the work of these innovators that art evolves. So how does this look up to abstract art? Until the end of the 19th century, virtually all painting was representational.Artists painted pictures that were straightforward, and people looked at those paintings for one modestness to see the particular images that were depicted. At first, this idea sounds so obvious as to just now be worth stating. Why else would you look at paintings, if not to see the images? However, as I will expla in, there are other, more compelling reasons to look at a painting. Indeed, it is possible to experience a painting in such a way that you go beyond what you see, in order to find out what you might feel. In the early 1870s, a movement arose in France that began to introduce abstraction into safe art.This movement, called Impressionism, produced works of art that, for the first time, did not consist wholly of realistic images. The original goal of the Impressionists was conceptually simplistic they wanted to depict nature as it really existed. In particular, they labored to capture the dynamical effects of light, as it mixed bagd throughout the day and from season to season. For example, the French painter Monet, whom I mentioned above, spent a lot of time creating series of paintings in which he painted the same subject at different times of the day.His goal was to show how the color and form of the subject changed from one hour to the next. Take a look at this painting of hays tacks, created by Monet in 1890-1891. His goal was not to paint a simple image of a stack of hay, but rather to show the color and form of the haystacks at a particular time of day at the end of the summer. From Monets point of view (I imagine), the painting was more of an economic consumption than a work of art. Wheatstacks (End of Summer) 1890-1891 by Claude Monet. Display a larger picture of this painting. Around the same time, another school of art, Neo-Impressionism, arose from the influence of Impressionism.The Neo-Impressionists used many small side-by-side dots to build up dissimilar shapes and colors. You can see this technique which is known as pointillism in the following painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, created in 1884-1886 by Georges Seurat (French, 1859-1891). A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte 1884-1886 by Georges Seurat. Display a larger picture of this painting. Finally, in the 1880s and 1890s, a disparate group of artists sought to move beyond Impressionism and its obsession with the changing effects of light.These artists, collectively known as the Post-Impressionists, created a wide range of striking and innovative paintings. Among the most important Post-Impressionists were Paul Cezanne (French, 1839-1906), whom I mentioned earlier, Paul Gauguin (French, 1848-1903) and Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890). When you look at Impressionist paintings, you will notice that, although they are generally soothing to the eye and calming to the spirit, they are, as a whole, quite boring. This is not the case with the Post-Impressionsts, as you can see by looking at the following two paintings. First, here is Where Do We Come From?What Are We? Where Are We Going? , painted in 1897 by Gauguin. Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? 1897 by Paul Gauguin. Display a larger picture of this painting. Next, take a look at Irises, painted in 1889 by van Gogh. Irises 1889 by Vincent van Gogh. Display a larger picture of this painting. The last three decades of the 19th century were a time of two important and distinct transitions. First, as I have mentioned, there was a dull change from representational art to abstract art. You can see this in the work of the Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists.The second change was more subtle, but far more important. With the work of the Post- Impressionists, the purpose of art itself had begun to change. For most of history, the primary purpose of painting had been to portray images, rather than to evoke feelings and emotions. Starting with the Post-Impressionists, however, the emphasis began to shift. For the first time, unconscious feelings began to find their way into mainstream art. What allowed this to happen was that the Impressionists had loosened the bonds, giving permission for painters to stray from their representational roots and become more abstract.To be sure, the Post-Impressionists were still quite literal in the ir work when you look at the work of Cezanne or Gauguin or van Gogh, you do know what you are looking at. Indeed, at the beginning of this essay, I used one of Cezannes paintings (Apples, Peaches, Pears, and Grapes) as an example of representational work. Still, the gradual shift to abstraction and the capturing of deep-seated emotion was real and far- trying. The reason that this is so important is that most of human life exists unconsciously, below the surface of perception and beyond the reach of voluntary, purposeful thinking.Within this netherworld, lies the strong, untamed and irrational forces that give life to our being and definition to what it means to be human. Until the twentieth century, artists had to be content with merely grazing the surface of consciousness. Try as they might, their ability to penetrate to the tone of what it means to be human was limited by their tools. When the virtuoso processes a recognizable image, a psychological barrier is erected that pre vents significant entry into the processes of the unconscious.Thus, representational art, by its very nature, imposes limits on how deeply an artist is able to insinuate him- or herself into the unconscious processes of the observer. However, with the coming of abstraction, artists had, for the first time, a ruling tool that would allow them to avoid literal perception and reach into this otherwise impenetrable world of unconscious emotion. This was possible because, the more abstract a work of art, the less preconceptions it evokes in the mind of the beholder. In the hands of a in effect(p) practitioner, abstract art can be an extremely powerful tool.However, as I will explain in a moment, such tools require more than the skill of the artist, they require the cooperation of the observer. Before I get to this point, however, Id like to continue with a bit of history. By the beginning of the 20th century, the move towards abstraction had generated enormous possibility. Previously, painters certified by the conventions of representational art had confined themselves to either imitating nature or telling stories. Now, for the first time, artists were able to enter a realm in which unbounded imagination was, not further possible, but desirable.Between 1910 and 1920, a new movement towards abstract art, both in painting and sculpture, arose in Europe and in newton America. The first important abstract artist was Wassily Kandinsky (Russian, 1866-1944). During the years 1910 to 1914, Kandinsky created a series of paintings which he called Improvisations and Compositions. Even today, almost a century later, Kandinskys work is striking in its ability to bypass our consciousness and stir our familiar feelings. Take a look, for example, at one of my favorites, Improvisation 7, which Kandinsky painted in 1910. Improvisation 7 1910 by Wassily Kandinsky.Display a larger picture of this painting. The work of Kandinsky was extremely influential, and helped to usher i n an age in which a number of abstract movements were established, one after another Cubism, Futurism, Vorticism, Neoplasticism, Dadaism, Surrealism, and so on. Rather than describe each of these movements in detail, Id like to jump to what I consider to be the defining point of 20th century art plagiarize Expressionism. What we now call Abstract Expressionism emerged in New York in the early 1940s. It was not so much a well-defined school of art, as a way of thinking.The Abstract Expressionists make the final break from the rigid conventions of the past, by redefining what it meant to be an artist. In essence, they rebelled against what the rest of the art world judged to be acceptable. Although the idea of abstraction had been around for some time, the Abstract Expressionists went a lot further. They began to emphasize, not only the spotless product, but the actual process of painting. They experimented in how they interacted with the paint, the canvas, and their tools and they paid attention to the physical qualities of the paint itself, its texture, color and shape.I insure this sounds vague and pretentious, so I will explain to you what it all means. Before I do, though, lets take a look at an Abstract Expressionist painting, so you can at least get a feeling for what I am talking about. The following painting was created in 1950 by Jackson pollack (American, 1912-1956), a pioneer of what came to be called action painting. The painting was originally called Number 1, 1950, but at the suggestion of an art critic named Clement Greenberg, the painting was renamed lilac mist (although, there is actually no lavender in it). Lavender Mist 1950 by Jackson Pollock. Display a larger picture of this painting. The name action painting was coined to describe the techniques used by Pollock. He would fasten large canvases to the infrastructure of his studio, and then drip, fling, and spill paint on them. He often used regular house paint, because he preferred the way it flowed. Now, I understand that the first time you look at a picture like Lavender Mist you may see nothing more than a confusing grade of disorganized lines and spots. What, I hear you say, is this supposed to mean?How could anything so primitive and crude be considered to be great art? It looks like something a bored kid would do if he was left exclusively in an art studio with no supervision. Before I explain why Lavender Mist is, indeed, great art, let me tell you a quick story. A few years ago, I pertinacious to visit Washington, D. C. by myself. It was the middle of winter, and the city had been hit by a huge snowstorm. I was all alone, so I decided to walk to the National Gallery of Art. The streets were virtually empty-bellied, and as I entered the museum, I could see that it too was empty.I asked the information person if they had anything by Jackson Pollock. She said yes, and gave me directions to the room in which his paintings and drawings were hung. I had hea rd of Pollock and seen photographs of his work, but I had never seen any of the paintings in person. I still call up the feeling I had when I descended the stairs, turned the corner, and looked at the wall. I was alone in a large room and, there on the far wall, was Lavender Mist. The effect it had on me was completely unexpected. It was the only time in my life when I can remember a painting, literally, taking my breath away.I know this will sound a bit sappy, but seeing that painting changed me forever. Looking at a Jackson Pollock painting for the first time. How could this be the case? You just looked at a picture of the same painting, and I doubt you felt as if you had been changed forever. First, I should explain that the actual canvas is large, to the highest degree 10 feet (3 meters) long. It is quite imposing when you see it in person, especially in a large empty room, where the painting seems to reach out, grab you and pull you towards it.Second, what you see in the pict ure above is nothing like the real thing. Not only is the picture on your screen much smaller than the actual painting, but the colors you see on a computer monitor are muted and inexact. Moreover, on a computer screen, you do not get a sense of the texture of the paint and the canvas. All of this you understand, I am sure. Everyone knows that viewing a real painting is a lot different from looking at a picture of the painting on a computer monitor (or on a labor screen in an art history class, for that matter).However, there is another reason why I was so moved by Lavender Mist, and it has to do with the very purpose of art. To discuss this, we have to consider the question, Why do we create art? There are a number of straightforward reasons why human beings create art to make a decoration, to tell a story, to capture or preserve an image, or to illustrate an idea. However, there is another, more subtle, but far more important reason why art is important to us. The need to reach inside ourselves and manipulate our unconscious feelings is universal.We all do it to some degree, although most of the time we are blind to what we are doing. That is where art comes in. As I explained earlier, one of the purposes of art is to allow us indirect access to our inner psyche. Great art affords a way to get in touch with the unconscious part of our existence, even if we dont realize what we are doing. In this sense, the role of the artist is to create something that, when viewed by an observer, evokes unconscious feelings and emotions.The reason abstract art has the potential to be so powerful is that it keeps the conscious distractions to a minimum. When you look at, say, the apples and pears of Cezanne, your mental energy mostly goes to processing the images the fruit, the plate, the table, and the background. However, when you look at Lavender Mist, you are not distracted by meaningful images, so virtually all of your brain power is devoted to feeling. You can open y ourself, let in the energy and spirit of the painting, and allow it to trip the light fantastic with your psyche.Of course, this only works if you cooperate with the artist. His job is to create a painting that is rendered so skillfully that, when you look at it, what you see actually changes what you feel at an unconscious level. Your job is to clear your conscious mind of thoughts and preconceptions in order to allow yourself to be influenced by what you are seeing. This means that, if you are to truly lever a work of art, you must be willing to let yourself go, to put yourself in the hands of the artist, so to speak, and let him take you wherever he wants.Much of the time, this partnership fails, sometimes because the artist is simply not skillful enough often because the person looking at the painting does not know how to truly appreciate it. Now you can see why the advent of Abstract Expressionism was so important. For the first time in history, artists were creating abstract art so skillfully that it was able to penetrate quickly and powerfully into peoples subconscious (at least some people, some of the time). Thus, it is possible to view the history of painting as a long evolutionary process, starting with the slow, labored development of tools and techniques.Eventually, after centuries of representationalism, the Impressionists began to shake off the long- standing restrictions, which led to the development of various schools of abstract art, culminating, in the 1940s, with Abstract Expressionism, the beginning of a new age of creation and human achievement. Id like to introduce to you a few of the Abstract Expressionists, painters whose work was important to the evolutionary process that redefined what it meant to be an artist. unrivalled thing that you will see is that work of these painters varies greatly.This is because, as I have mentioned, Abstract Expressionism is not so much a school of painting as a way of approaching and experiencing the act of creation. I have already shown you Lavender Mist (1950) by Jackson Pollock. Here is one of Pollacks earlier paintings, The identify, which he created in 1946. The Key 1946 by Jackson Pollock. Display a larger picture of this painting. Next, Id like to show you a painting by Arshile Gorky (Armenian-American, 1904-1948), whose work had significant influence at the time that Abstract Expressionism was emerging.This painting, called One Year the Milkweed, was created in 1944. One Year the Milkweed 1944 by Arshile Gorky. Display a larger picture of this painting. When you are just getting used to abstract art, you might wonder, just how wide are these artists anyway? It doesnt look all that hard to fill a canvas with lines, and smears, and splotches. I can assure you that the best abstract painters are all highly skilled artists in their own right. For example, here is a charcoal sketch done by Gorky in 1938, called The Artists Mother. It is actually an idealization of his mothe r, elysian by an old photograph. ) The Artists Mother 1938 by Arshile Gorky. The next painting is by Franz Kline (American, 1910-1962). It is called Painting Number 2, and was created in 1954. Painting Number 2 1954 by Franz Kline. Display a larger picture of this painting. Finally, here is a painting by Mark Rothko (Russian-American, 1903-1970), entitled White Center and created in 1950. This painting is an example of what is called Color Field painting an abstract image with large areas of undiluted color. White Center 1950 by Mark Rothko.