We explain what abstract art is and what was the origin of this artistic expression. In addition, its characteristics and classification.
What is abstract art?
We call abstract art a style of expression of plastic arts (painting Y sculpture) mainly, that instead of representing concrete and recognizable figures of the real world (as figurative art does), it proposes a different reality through its own language and independent of forms, colors and lines.
In other words, abstract art employs forms and perspectives that are not a copy of the reality, if they are governed by the apparently logical rules, but much freer and more innovative works are proposed, whose interpretation is left to the viewer.
This style emerged at the beginning of the 20th century and continues to this day, having great exhibitors such as the painters Vasili Kandinski, Robert Deaunay, Kazmir Málevich, Piet Mondrian, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Jesús Soto, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Gerhard Richter or Joan I look. Also, the sculptors Marcel Duchamp, Aexander Calder and Jean Arp.
Many abstractionists had a connection to music, considering it as the goal of his particular artistic process, since music produces an aesthetic effect through the abstraction of the sound of musical notes, which do not imitate any concrete reality.
The abstractionists sought to leave behind the recognizable realm of forms and pursue "pure art."
Origin of abstract art
The first abstract painter to be considered as such was the Lithuanian Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, whose first abstract works date back to 1904 and who also ventured into sculpture.
But it would be the Russian Vasili Kandinski who would establish the foundations of abstractionism as a coherent, modern and international artistic movement, through what he called "Lyrical abstraction" between 1910 and 1912.
This movement would be joined by various and simultaneous artistic explorations around a "pure art" in Russia, France and later Germany and the United States.
Characteristics of abstract art
Despite the fact that abstract art encompasses a significant number of trends, proposals and styles, its characteristics can be summarized as:
- A great awareness of shapes and forms colors, used at will to escape concrete reality.
- The abstract sculptures are based on the principle of three-dimensionality and geometry, sometimes giving prominence to color.
- Abstract paintings propose their own language of form, color and line whose rules belong to the artist.
- Abstract works require the viewer to approach them in an intuitive, less traditional way.
- Abstract art broke with the need to represent concrete objects, giving room to thoughts and the most diffuse mental notions.
Types of abstract art
Abstract art can be classified according to the trends that mark its style, in:
- Curved. Characterized by curved lines, which intertwine, trace spirals or other semicircular shapes, such as knots or the triskele or triskelion.
- Chromatic-visual. Works in which the visual impact from color predominates, in a more or less chaotic or ordered way (sequential, for example).
- Geometric. Derived from cubism inaugurated by Picasso, it aspires to geometric forms as a language of the work, and that is why it prefers forms math.
- Intuitional. A trend without visible or recognizable patterns, which challenges the viewer and requires them to approach the work from the intuition and the sensible, not the logic.
- Gestural. Lucky hybrid between abstractionism and expressionism, emphasizes the line and the brushstroke, that is, the very way in which the work was composed, to achieve the desired abstraction.
- Minimalist. A return to the simple, to the little, to the absence in the painting. It can be given with one or two colors, a simple shape or various approaches that are precisely minimal, never ornate or baroque.