Painting by contemporary artists: Abstract art. Abstract art: definition, types and artists Abstract art authors

And Mikhail Larionov, who founded “Luchism” in 1912, the creator of Suprematism as a new type of creativity, Kazimir Malevich, author of the “Black Square” and Evgeniy Mikhnov-Voitenko, whose work is distinguished, among other things, by an unprecedentedly wide range of areas of the abstract method applied in his works (the artist was the first among not only domestic but also foreign masters to use a number of them, including the “graffiti style”).

A related movement to abstractionism is cubism, which seeks to depict real objects with a multitude of intersecting planes, creating the image of certain rectilinear figures that reproduce living nature. One of the most bright examples there were cubism early works Pablo Picasso.

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In 1910-1915, painters in Russia Western Europe and the USA began to create abstract works of art; Among the first abstractionists, researchers name Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian. The year of birth of non-objective art is considered to be 1910, when Kandinsky wrote his first abstract composition in Murnau, Germany. The aesthetic concepts of the first abstractionists assumed that artistic creativity reflects the laws of the universe hidden behind the external, superficial phenomena of reality. These patterns, intuitively comprehended by the artist, were expressed through the relationship of abstract forms (color spots, lines, volumes, geometric shapes) in an abstract work. In 1911 in Munich, Kandinsky published what became famous book“On the Spiritual in Art,” in which he reflected on the possibility of embodying the internally necessary, spiritual, as opposed to the external, accidental. The “logical basis” for Kandinsky’s abstractions was based on the study of the theosophical and anthroposophical works of Helena Blavatsky and Rudolf Steiner. In the aesthetic concept of Piet Mondrian, the primary elements of form were the primary oppositions: horizontal - vertical, line - plane, color - non-color. In the theory of Robert Delaunay, in contrast to the concepts of Kandinsky and Mondrian, idealistic metaphysics was rejected; The main task of abstractionism seemed to the artist to study the dynamic qualities of color and other properties artistic language(the direction founded by Delaunay was called Orphism). The creator of “rayonism,” Mikhail Larionov, depicted “the emission of reflected light; color dust."
Originating in the early 1910s, abstract art developed rapidly, appearing in many areas of avant-garde art in the first half of the 20th century. The ideas of abstractionism were reflected in the works of the expressionists (Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Franz Marc), cubists (Fernand Léger), Dadaists (Jean Arp), surrealists (Joan Miró), Italian futurists (Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla, Enrico Pram Polini), Orphists (Robert Delaunay, Frantisek Kupka), Russian Suprematists (Kazimir Malevich), “Radiants” (Mikhail Larionov and Natalya Goncharova) and constructivists (Lyubov Popova, Lazar Lisitsky, Alexander Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova), Dutch neoplasticists (Piet Mondrian, Te o van Doesburg , Bart van der Lek), a number of European sculptors (Alexander Archipenko, Constantin Brancusi, Umberto Boccioni, Antoine Pevzner, Naum Gabo, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Vladimir Tatlin). Soon after the emergence of abstract art, two main directions in the development of this art emerged: geometric abstraction gravitating towards regular geometric forms and stable, “substantial” states (Mondrian, Malevich), and preferring freer forms, dynamic processes lyrical abstraction(Kandinsky, Kupka). The first international associations of abstract artists (“Circle and Square”, “Abstraction-Creativity”) were formed in the early 1920s - early 1930s in Paris.
The aesthetic programs of the abstractionists were characterized by universalism; abstract art was presented in them as a universal model of the world order, including both the structure of the environment and the structure of society. Working with the primary elements of pictorial language, abstractionists turned to general compositional principles and the laws of shape formation. It is not surprising that abstractionists found use for non-representational forms in industrial art, artistic design, and architecture (the activities of the “Style” group in the Netherlands and the Bauhaus school in Germany; Kandinsky’s work at VKHUTEMAS; Malevich’s architects and design projects; Alexander Calder’s “mobiles”; Vladimir Tatlin’s designs , works by Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner). The activities of abstractionists contributed to the formation modern architecture, arts and crafts, design.
At the end of the 1940s, abstract expressionism, formed on the basis of lyrical abstractionism, developed in the United States. Representatives of abstract expressionism (Pollock, Mark Tobey, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky, Franz Kline) proclaimed “unconsciousness” and automaticity of creativity, unforeseen effects (“action painting”) as their method. Their aesthetic concepts no longer contained idealistic metaphysics, and a non-objective composition sometimes became a self-sufficient object that excluded associations with reality. The European analogue of abstract expressionism was Tachisme, whose prominent representatives were Hans Hartung, Pierre Soulages, Volsa, Georges Mathieu. Artists sought to use unexpected, non-standard combinations of colors and textures, sculptors (Eduardo Chillida, Seymour Lipton and others) created bizarre compositions and used unusual methods of processing materials.
In the 1960s, with the decline of abstract expressionism, op art, which developed the principles of geometric abstraction and used optical illusions of perception of flat and spatial objects, became a noticeable movement in abstractionism. Another direction in the development of geometric abstraction was kinetic art, which plays on the effects of real movement of the entire work or its individual components (Alexander Calder, Jean Tinguely, Nicholas Schöffer, Jesus Soto, Taxis). In parallel, post-painterly abstraction arose in the United States, the principles of which were reduction and extreme simplification of pictorial forms; Having inherited regular geometric forms from geometric abstraction, post-painterly abstraction rounds and “softens” them. Notable representatives of this trend are Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly, and Kenneth Noland. The ultimate expression of geometric abstraction in sculpture was minimalism, which emerged in the 1960s and 1970s.

History of abstract art in Russia and the USSR

1900-1949

The artists Kandinsky and Malevich at the beginning of the 20th century made a significant contribution to the development of the theory and practice of abstract art.
In the 1920s, during the rapid development of all avant-garde movements, abstract art included in its orbit the cubo-futurists, non-objectivists, constructivists, and suprematists: Alexandra Ekster and Lyubov Popova, Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova, Georgy Stenberg and Mikhail Matyushin, Nikolai Suetin and Ilya Chashnik . The language of non-figurative art was the basis of the culture of a new, modern plastic form, easel, decorative and applied or monumental, and had every opportunity for further fruitful and promising development. But the internal contradictions of the avant-garde movement, strengthened by the pressure of ideological officialdom, in the early 1930s forced its leaders to look for other creative ways. Anti-national, idealistic abstract art henceforth had no right to exist.
With the coming to power of the fascists, the centers of abstractionism from Germany and Italy moved to America, since the concept of abstractionism did not find support among the ideologists of fascism. In 1937, a museum of non-figurative painting was created in New York, founded by the family of millionaire Guggenheim, and in 1939, the Museum of Modern Art, created with funds from Rockefeller. During the Second World War and after its end, all the ultra-left forces of the artistic world gathered in America.
In post-war America, the “New York School” was gaining strength, whose members included the creators of abstract expressionism Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Barnett Neumann, and Adolph Gottlieb. In the summer of 1959, their works were seen by young artists in Moscow at an exhibition national art USA in Sokolniki Park. Two years before this event, contemporary world art was presented at an art exhibition as part of the World Festival of Youth and Students. The information breakthrough has become a kind of symbol of spiritual and social freedom [ ] . Abstract art was now associated with internal liberation from totalitarian oppression bloody regime, with a different worldview [ ] . The problems of contemporary artistic language and new plastic forms turned out to be inextricably linked with socio-political processes. The era of the “thaw” implied a special system of relationships between abstract art and power. A new stage in the development of Soviet abstract art began - the 1950-1970s.
For young Soviet artists, brought up in the traditions of the academic system and a materialistic vision of the world, the discovery of abstraction meant the possibility of reproducing personal subjective experience. American researchers characterized abstract expressionism as “a gesture of liberation from political, aesthetic, moral values” [ ] . Similar feelings were experienced by young painters in the USSR, who were comprehending contemporary art that was unfamiliar to them and at the same time building their own forms of coexistence with the authorities or opposition to them. The underground was born, and among informal artists the turn to abstract art was generally accepted and widespread.
During these years, many painters felt the need for the language of non-objective art. The need to master a formal vocabulary was often associated not only with immersion in spontaneous creativity, but also with the composition of thoughtful theoretical treatises. As at the beginning of the century, for these painters abstraction did not mean the denial of different levels of meaning. Contemporary European and American abstract art was based on such fundamental layers as the study of primitive mythological consciousness, Freudianism, the principles of existentialism, and Eastern philosophies - Zen [ ] . But in the conditions of Soviet reality, abstract artists were not always able to become sufficiently fully and deeply acquainted with the primary sources; they intuitively found answers to the problems that worried them [ ] and, rejecting accusations of simply copying Western models, they took their own professional reputation seriously [ ] .

1950-1970

The return of abstract art to the cultural space of Russia was not just a consequence of a change in the political climate or an imitation of the artistic phenomena of the West. The laws of “self-development of art” built forms that were “vital for art itself.” There was a “process of repersonalization of art. It’s now possible to create individual pictures of the world.” [ ] The latter caused a powerful negative reaction at the state level, which for many years taught us to view abstractionism as “an extremely formalistic direction, alien to truthfulness, ideology and nationality” [ ], and works created by abstractionists, such as: “A meaningless combination of abstract geometric shapes, chaotic spots and lines.” [ ]
For almost thirty years (from the late 1950s to 1988) he developed own style abstract creativity Evgeniy Mikhnov-Voitenko, unique master by the range of methods used. Different periods his work is marked by many experiments in painting and decorative arts; the artist's heritage includes graphics, paintings made in mixed media, nitro enamel, pastel, sauce, oil, gouache, tempera, as well as works made of wood, metal, glass, foam.
First [ ] the studio “New Reality”, which gathered around E. M. Belutin, became an informal artistic association of the “Thaw” period that developed the principles of abstract art. Initially, the studio functioned as advanced training courses at the City Committee of Graphic Artists. The course towards general liberalization set by the 20th Congress opened up prospects for freedom of creativity and artistic exploration. However, the 1962 exhibition in the Manege, sharp criticism from the party of art artists " New reality" and the campaign against abstract art forced artists to go underground. Over the next 30 years, the studio worked continuously in workshops in Abramtsevo, in a house owned by Belyutin.
Developing the principles of non-figurative depiction, the studio’s artists relied both on the experience of Russian avant-garde artists of the beginning of the century and on modern Western artists. A feature of the “New Reality” was the focus on collective work, which the futurists of the early 20th century strove for. “New Reality” united Moscow artists who held different views on the methodology of constructing abstraction. Artists Lucian Gribkov and Tamara Ter-Ghevondyan worked in a style closest to abstract expressionism. While retaining elements of real forms in their works, they developed categories of expression emotional states through visual and plastic moves. Vera Preobrazhenskaya, who was for a long time the head of the studio and fixed the theory and methodology of the school, has come a long way from expressionism through the aesthetics of op art to geometric abstraction. Together with Eliy Belyutin, Preobrazhenskaya worked on the development of “psychogranule” modules, symbols that would express concrete states and abstract concepts using clear color-plastic solutions. Vera Preobrazhenskaya said: “In my paintings, God is almost always a black square” [ ] . In the process of working with studio students, Eli Belyutin formed the theory of “universal contact,” in which he expressed the principles of developing the artist’s creative potential.
The artists of the “New Reality” considered themselves heirs, first of all, of the art of Wassily Kandinsky. The founder of Russian abstraction focused on depicting the spiritual world through plastic art. Their artistic searches were also enriched by the achievements of European abstractionists of the mid-century, who partially returned figurative art to their works in the new quality of an optical illusion or fetish.
Kandinsky said that: “Consciously or unconsciously, artists are increasingly turning to their material, testing it, weighing on spiritual scales the inner value of the elements from which art must be created” [ ] . What was said at the beginning of the century again became relevant for subsequent generations of painters. In the second half of the 1950s, an abstract sculpture equipped with an “electronic brain” appeared - “Cysp I” by Nicolas Schöffer. Alexander Kalder creates his own “stables”. One of the isolated areas of abstractionism emerges - op art. At the same time, almost simultaneously in England and the USA, the first collages appeared, using labels of mass-produced products, photographs, reproductions and similar objects of the new pop art style.
Moscow abstraction at the turn of the 1960s, delving into the search for a new form, corresponding to the internal state of “creative insight,” a kind of meditation, provided convincing examples of its own understanding of the culture of the non-objective. For example, in the works of Vladimir Nemukhin, Lydia Masterkova, Mikhail Kulakov, who were certainly passionate about abstract expressionism, which they were able to fill with high spiritual tension. Other type abstract thinking demonstrated the most consistent in his analytical and practical work Yuri Zlotnikov, author of the extensive “Signals” series, created in the late 1950s. According to the artist: “Dynamism, rhythm, clearly expressed in geometric abstraction,” led him to the analysis: “Dynamic concepts inherent in art,” and further: “To the study of human motor reactions” [ ] . In “Signals,” the artist explored the “feedback” of spontaneous psychological reactions to color symbols.
The next stage in the development of Russian abstraction begins in the 1970s. This is the time when modern artists became acquainted with the work of Malevich, with Suprematism and Constructivism, with the traditions of the Russian avant-garde, its theory and practice. Malevich’s “Primary Elements” aroused a stable interest in geometric forms, linear signs, and plastic structures. “Geometric” abstraction made it possible to get closer to the problems that worried the masters of the 1920s, to feel the continuity and spiritual connection with the classical avant-garde. Modern authors discovered the works of Russian philosophers and theologians, theologians and mystics, became familiar with inexhaustible intellectual sources, which in turn filled the works of Mikhail Shvartsman, Valery Yurlov, Eduard Steinberg with new meaning.
Geometric abstraction formed the basis of the working methods of artists who united in the early 1960s in the group “Movement”. Among its members were Lev Nusberg, Vyacheslav Koleichuk, Francisco Infante. The latter was especially keen on Suprematism. In “Dynamic Spirals,” Infante studied the model of an infinite spiral in space and carefully analyzed: “The non-existent plastic situation.”
American painting of the 1970s. returns to figurativeness. It is believed that the 1970s is: “The moment of truth for American painting, which is freed from the European tradition that nourished it and becomes purely American.” [ ]
The mid-1980s can be considered as the completion of the next stage in the development of abstraction in Russia, which by this time had accumulated not only enormous experience in creative efforts, meaningful philosophical issues, but also convinced of the demand for abstract thinking.
The 1990s confirmed the special “Russian path” of non-objective art. From the point of view of the development of world culture, abstractionism as a style movement ended in 1958. However, in: “Post-reconstruction Russian society only now arose the need for equal communication with abstract art, there was a desire to see not meaningless spots, but the beauty of plastic play, its rhythms, to penetrate their meaning. To finally hear the sound of picturesque symphonies.” [ ] Artists were given the opportunity to express themselves in not only classical forms - Suprematism or abstract expressionism, but lyrical and geometric abstraction, minimalism, sculpture, an object, a hand-made author's book, in paper pulp cast by the master himself.

Modern abstractionism in painting

An important term modern language abstraction has become White color. For Marina Kastalskaya, Andrei Krasulin, Valery Orlov, Leonid Pelikh, the space of white - the highest tension of color - is generally filled with endless variable possibilities, allowing the use of both metaphysical ideas about the spiritual and the optical laws of light reflection.
Space as a conceptual category has different semantic loads in contemporary art. For example, there is a space of a sign, a symbol that emerged from the depths of archaic consciousness, sometimes transformed into a structure reminiscent of a hieroglyph. There is a space of ancient manuscripts, the image of which has become a kind of palimpsest in the compositions of Valentin Gerasimenko.
1997. - 416 p.
Abstraction in Russia: XX Century: State Russian Museum. Almanac. No. 17 / In Russian and English languages; ed. Evgenia Petrova. - State Russian Museum, Palace Editions, 2001. - 814 p. - ISBN 5-93332-070-6, 3-935298-50-1.

Abstractionism(Latin abstraction - removal, distraction) or non-figurative art - a direction of art that abandoned the depiction of forms in painting and sculpture that is close to reality. One of the goals of abstract art is to achieve “harmonization” by depicting certain color combinations and geometric shapes, evoking in the viewer a feeling of completeness and completeness of the composition. Prominent figures: Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov, Piet Mondrian.

The first abstract painting was painted by Wassily Kandinsky in 1909. She is currently in National Museum Georgia - thus he opened a new page in world painting - abstractionism, raising painting to music.

In the painting of Russia of the 20th century, the main representatives of abstractionism were Wassily Kandinsky (who completed the transition to his abstract compositions in Germany), Natalya Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov, who founded “Rauchism” in 1910-1912, the creator of Suprematism as a new type of creativity, Kazimir Malevich, the author of “Black square" and Evgeny Mikhnov-Voitenko, whose work is distinguished, among other things, by an unprecedentedly wide range of directions of the abstract method applied in his works (a number of them, including the "graffiti style", the artist was the first to use among not only domestic, but also foreign masters).

A related movement to abstractionism is cubism, which strives to depict real objects with a multitude of intersecting planes, creating the image of certain rectilinear figures that reproduce living nature. Some of the most striking examples of Cubism were the early works of Pablo Picasso.

History of abstract art

In 1910-1915, painters in Russia, Western Europe and the United States began to create abstract works of art; Among the first abstractionists, researchers name Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian. The year of birth of non-objective art is considered to be 1910, when Kandinsky wrote his first abstract composition in Murnau, Germany. The aesthetic concepts of the first abstractionists assumed that artistic creativity reflects the laws of the universe hidden behind the external, superficial phenomena of reality. These patterns, intuitively comprehended by the artist, were expressed through the relationship of abstract forms (color spots, lines, volumes, geometric figures) in an abstract work. In 1911 in Munich, Kandinsky published his now famous book “On the Spiritual in Art,” in which he reflected on the possibility of embodying the internally necessary, the spiritual, as opposed to the external, the accidental. The “logical basis” for Kandinsky’s abstractions was based on the study of the theosophical and anthroposophical works of Helena Blavatsky and Rudolf Steiner. In the aesthetic concept of Piet Mondrian, the primary elements of form were the primary oppositions: horizontal - vertical, line - plane, color - non-color. In the theory of Robert Delaunay, in contrast to the concepts of Kandinsky and Mondrian, idealistic metaphysics was rejected; The main task of abstractionism seemed to the artist to be the study of the dynamic qualities of color and other properties of artistic language (the direction founded by Delaunay was called Orphism). The creator of “rayonism,” Mikhail Larionov, depicted “the emission of reflected light; color dust."

Originating in the early 1910s, abstract art developed rapidly, appearing in many areas of avant-garde art in the first half of the 20th century. The ideas of abstractionism were reflected in the works of the Expressionists (Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Franz Marc), Cubists (Fernand Léger), Dadaists (Jean Arp), Surrealists (Joan Miró), Italian Futurists (Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla, Enrico Prampolini), Orphists (Robert Delaunay, Frantisek Kupka), Russian Suprematists (Kazimir Malevich), “Radiants” (Mikhail Larionov and Natalya Goncharova) and Constructivists (Lyubov Popova, Lazar Lisitsky, Alexander Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova), Dutch Neoplasticists (Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg , Bart van der Leck), a number of European sculptors (Alexander Archipenko, Constantin Brancusi, Umberto Boccioni, Antoine Pevzner, Naum Gabo, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Vladimir Tatlin). Soon after the emergence of abstract art, two main directions in the development of this art emerged: geometric abstraction, which gravitates towards regular geometric forms and stable, “substantial” states (Mondrian, Malevich), and lyrical abstraction, which prefers freer forms and dynamic processes (Kandinsky, Kupka). The first international associations of abstract artists (“Circle and Square”, “Abstraction-Creativity”) were formed in the early 1920s - early 1930s in Paris.

The aesthetic programs of the abstractionists were characterized by universalism; abstract art was presented in them as a universal model of the world order, including both the structure of the environment and the structure of society. Working with the primary elements of pictorial language, abstractionists turned to general compositional principles and the laws of shape formation. It is not surprising that abstractionists found application for non-representational forms in industrial art, artistic design, and architecture (the activities of the “Style” group in the Netherlands and the Bauhaus school in Germany; Kandinsky’s work at VKHUTEMAS; architects and design projects of Malevich; “mobiles” of Alexander Calder; designs of Vladimir Tatlin , works by Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner). The activities of abstractionists contributed to the development of modern architecture, decorative and applied arts, and design.

At the end of the 1940s, abstract expressionism, formed on the basis of lyrical abstractionism, developed in the United States. Representatives of abstract expressionism (Pollock, Mark Tobey, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky, Franz Kline) proclaimed as their method “unconsciousness” and automaticity of creativity, unforeseen effects (“action painting”). Their aesthetic concepts no longer contained idealistic metaphysics, and a non-objective composition sometimes became a self-sufficient object that excluded associations with reality. The European analogue of abstract expressionism was Tachisme, whose prominent representatives were Hans Hartung, Pierre Soulages, Volsa, Georges Mathieu. Artists sought to use unexpected, non-standard combinations of colors and textures, sculptors (Eduardo Chillida, Seymour Lipton and others) created bizarre compositions and used unusual methods of processing materials.

In the 1960s, with the decline of abstract expressionism, op art, which developed the principles of geometric abstraction and used optical illusions of perception of flat and spatial objects, became a noticeable trend in abstractionism. Another direction in the development of geometric abstraction was kinetic art, which plays on the effects of real movement of the entire work or its individual components (Alexander Calder, Jean Tinguely, Nicholas Schöffer, Jesus Soto, Taxis). In parallel, post-painterly abstraction arose in the United States, the principles of which were reduction and extreme simplification of pictorial forms; Having inherited regular geometric forms from geometric abstraction, post-painterly abstraction rounds and “softens” them. Notable representatives of this trend are Frank Stella, Elsworth Kelly, and Kenneth Noland. The ultimate expression of geometric abstraction in sculpture was minimalism, which emerged in the 1960s and 1970s.

Modern abstractionism in painting

White color has become an important component of the modern language of abstraction. For Marina Kastalskaya, Andrei Krasulin, Valery Orlov, Leonid Pelikh, the space of white - the highest tension of color - is generally filled with endless variable possibilities, allowing the use of both metaphysical ideas about the spiritual and the optical laws of light reflection.

Space as a conceptual category has different semantic loads in contemporary art. For example, there is a space of a sign, a symbol that emerged from the depths of archaic consciousness, sometimes transformed into a structure reminiscent of a hieroglyph. There is a space of ancient manuscripts, the image of which has become a kind of palimpsest in the compositions of Valentin Gerasimenko.

In modern abstractionism, a plot direction is developing (Gennady Rybalko). While maintaining objectivity, the abstract image is constructed in such a way that it evokes specific associations - different levels abstractions: from the objective situation to the philosophical level of abstract categories. On the other hand, the image may look like a painting fantasy world- abstract surrealism. Its offshoot is the depiction of volumetric abstracts.

Abstract art (lat. abstractio– removal, distraction) or non-figurative art- a direction of art that abandoned the depiction of forms close to reality in painting and sculpture. One of the goals of abstract art is to achieve “harmonization” by depicting certain color combinations and geometric shapes, evoking in the viewer a feeling of completeness and completeness of the composition. Prominent figures: Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov, Piet Mondrian.

Story

Abstractionism(art under the sign of “zero forms”, non-objective art) is an artistic direction that was formed in the art of the first half of the 20th century, completely abandoning the reproduction of forms of the real visible world. The founders of abstract art are considered to be V. Kandinsky , P. Mondrian And K. Malevich.

V. Kandinsky created his own type of abstract painting, freeing the impressionist and “wild” stains from any signs of objectivity. Piet Mondrian arrived at his non-objectivity through the geometric stylization of nature initiated by Cézanne and the Cubists. Modernist movements of the 20th century, focused on abstractionism, completely depart from traditional principles, denying realism, but at the same time remaining within the framework of art. The history of art experienced a revolution with the advent of abstract art. But this revolution did not arise by chance, but quite naturally, and was predicted by Plato! In his late work Philebus, he wrote about the beauty of lines, surfaces and spatial forms in themselves, independent of any imitation of visible objects, from any mimesis. This kind of geometric beauty, unlike the beauty of natural “irregular” forms, according to Plato, is not relative, but unconditional, absolute.

20th century and modern times

After World War I, 1914-18, abstract art tendencies often manifested themselves in individual works representatives of Dadaism and surrealism; At the same time, there was a desire to find application for non-figurative forms in architecture, decorative art, and design (experiments of the Style group and Bauhaus). Several groups of abstract art (“Concrete Art”, 1930; “Circle and Square”, 1930; “Abstraction and Creativity”, 1931), uniting artists of various nationalities and movements, arose in the early 30s, mainly in France. However, abstract art did not become widespread at that time, and by the mid-30s. the groups broke up. During the Second World War 1939–45, a school of so-called abstract expressionism arose in the USA (painters J. Pollock, M. Tobey etc.), which developed after the war in many countries (under the name of tachisme or “formless art”) and proclaimed as its method “pure mental automatism” and the subjective subconscious impulsiveness of creativity, the cult of unexpected color and texture combinations.

In the second half of the 50s, installation art and pop art arose in the United States, which somewhat later glorified Andy Warhol with his endless circulation of portraits of Marilyn Monroe and cans of dog food - collage abstractionism. In the fine arts of the 60s, the least aggressive, static form of abstraction, minimalism, became popular. At the same time Barnett Newman, founder of American geometric abstract art along with A. Liberman, A. Held And K. Noland successfully engaged in the further development of the ideas of Dutch neoplasticism and Russian Suprematism.

Another movement of American painting is called “chromatic” or “post-painterly” abstractionism. Its representatives were to some extent inspired by Fauvism and Post-Impressionism. Rigid style, emphatically sharp outlines of the work E. Kelly, J. Jungerman, F. Stella gradually gave way to paintings of a contemplative melancholic nature. In the 70s and 80s, American painting returned to figurativeness. Moreover, such an extreme manifestation as photorealism has become widespread. Most art historians agree that the 70s are the moment of truth for American art, since during this period it was finally freed from European influence and became purely American. However, despite the return traditional forms and genres, from portrait to historical painting, abstractionism has not disappeared either.

Paintings and works of “non-representational” art were created as before, since the return to realism in the USA was overcome not by abstractionism as such, but by its canonization, the ban on figurative art, which was identified primarily with our socialist realism, and therefore could not help but be considered odious in a “free democratic” society, a ban on “low” genres, on social functions art. At the same time, the style of abstract painting acquired a certain softness that it lacked before - streamlined volumes, blurred contours, a richness of halftones, subtle color schemes ( E. Murray, G. Stefan, L. Rivers, M. Morley, L. Chese, A. Bialobrod).

All these trends laid the foundation for the development of modern abstractionism. There can be nothing frozen or final in creativity, since that would be death for it. But no matter what path abstractionism takes, no matter what transformations it undergoes, its essence always remains unchanged. It is that abstractionism in fine art is the most accessible and noble way to capture personal existence, and in a form that is most adequate - like a facsimile print. At the same time, abstractionism is a direct realization of freedom.

Directions

In abstractionism, two clear directions can be distinguished: geometric abstraction, based primarily on clearly defined configurations (Malevich, Mondrian), and lyrical abstraction, in which the composition is organized from freely flowing forms (Kandinsky). There are also several other large independent movements in abstract art.

Cubism

An avant-garde movement in fine art that originated at the beginning of the 20th century and is characterized by the use of emphatically conventional geometric forms, the desire to “split” real objects into stereometric primitives.

Regionalism (Rayism)

A movement in abstract art of the 1910s, based on the shift of light spectra and light transmission. The idea of the emergence of forms from the “intersection of reflected rays” is characteristic various items“, since what a person actually perceives is not the object itself, but “the sum of the rays coming from the light source and reflected from the object.”

Neoplasticism

Designation of the movement of abstract art that existed in 1917–1928. in Holland and united artists grouped around the magazine “De Stijl” (“Style”). Characterized by clear rectangular shapes in architecture and abstract painting in the arrangement of large rectangular planes, painted in the primary colors of the spectrum.

Orphism

Direction in French painting of the 1910s. Orphist artists sought to express the dynamics of movement and the musicality of rhythms with the help of “regularities” of the interpenetration of the primary colors of the spectrum and the mutual intersection of curved surfaces.

Suprematism

A movement in avant-garde art founded in the 1910s. Malevich. It was expressed in combinations of multi-colored planes of the simplest geometric shapes. The combination of multi-colored geometric shapes forms balanced asymmetrical suprematist compositions permeated with internal movement.

Tachisme

A movement in Western European abstract art of the 1950s–60s, which became most widespread in the United States. It is painting with spots that do not recreate images of reality, but express the unconscious activity of the artist. Strokes, lines and spots in tachisme are applied to the canvas with quick movements of the hand without a pre-thought-out plan.

Abstract expressionism

The movement of artists painting quickly and on large canvases, using non-geometric strokes, large brushes, sometimes dripping paint onto the canvas to fully reveal emotions. The expressive painting method here is often as important as the painting itself.

Abstractionism in the interior

IN Lately abstractionism began to move from the paintings of artists into the cozy interior of the house, updating it advantageously. A minimalist style using clear forms, sometimes quite unusual, makes the room unusual and interesting. But it’s very easy to overdo it with color. Consider the combination orange color in this interior style.

White best dilutes the rich orange and, as it were, cools it down. The color of orange makes the room feel hotter, so a little; not prevent. The emphasis should be on the furniture or its design, for example, an orange bedspread. In this case, white walls will drown out the brightness of the color, but will leave the room colorful. In this case, paintings of the same scale will serve as an excellent addition - the main thing is not to overdo it, otherwise there will be problems with sleep.

The combination of orange and blue colors is detrimental to any room, unless it concerns a child's room. If you choose not bright shades, they will harmonize well with each other, add mood, and will not have a detrimental effect even on hyperactive children.

Orange goes well with green, creating the effect of a tangerine tree and a chocolate tint. Brown is a color that ranges from warm to cool, so it ideally normalizes the overall temperature of the room. In addition, this color combination is suitable for the kitchen and living room, where you need to create an atmosphere without overloading the interior. Having decorated the walls in white and chocolate colors, you can safely put an orange chair or hang a bright picture with rich tangerine color. While you are in such a room, you will be in a great mood and want to do as many things as possible.

Paintings by famous abstract artists

Kandinsky was one of the pioneers of abstract art. He began his search in impressionism, and only then came to the style of abstractionism. In his work, he exploited the relationship between color and form to create an aesthetic experience that embraced both the vision and the emotions of the viewer. He believed that complete abstraction provides scope for deep, transcendent expression, and copying reality only interferes with this process.

Painting was deeply spiritual for Kandinsky. He sought to convey the depth of human emotion through a universal visual language of abstract shapes and colors that would transcend physical and cultural boundaries. He saw abstractionism as an ideal visual mode that can express the artist's "inner necessity" and convey human ideas and emotions. He considered himself a prophet whose mission was to share these ideals with the world for the benefit of society.

Hidden in bright colors and clear black lines depict several Cossacks with spears, as well as boats, figures and a castle on top of a hill. Like many paintings from this period, it imagines an apocalyptic battle that will lead to eternal peace.

To facilitate the development of a non-objective style of painting, as described in his work On the Spiritual in Art (1912), Kandinsky reduces objects to pictographic symbols. By removing most references to the outside world, Kandinsky expressed his vision in a more universal way, translating the spiritual essence of the subject through all these forms into a visual language. Many of these symbolic figures were repeated and refined in his later works, becoming even more abstract.

Kazimir Malevich

Malevich's ideas about form and meaning in art somehow lead to a concentration on the theory of abstract art style. Malevich worked with different styles in painting, but was most focused on the study of pure geometric shapes (squares, triangles, circles) and their relationship to each other in pictorial space. Thanks to his contacts in the West, Malevich was able to convey his ideas about painting to artist friends in Europe and the United States, and thus profoundly influence the evolution of modern art.

"Black Square" (1915)

The cult painting “Black Square” was first shown by Malevich at an exhibition in Petrograd in 1915. This work embodies the theoretical principles of Suprematism developed by Malevich in his essay “From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: New Realism in Painting.”

On the canvas in front of the viewer there is an abstract form in the form of a black square drawn on a white background - it is the only element of the composition. Although the painting appears simple, there are elements such as fingerprints and brush strokes visible through the black layers of paint.

For Malevich, the square signifies feelings, and the white signifies emptiness, nothingness. He saw the black square as a god-like presence, an icon, as if it could become a new sacred image for non-figurative art. Even at the exhibition, this painting was placed in the place where an icon is usually placed in a Russian house.

Piet Mondrian

Piet Mondrian, one of the founders of the Dutch De Stijl movement, is recognized for the purity of his abstractions and methodical practice. He simplified the elements of his paintings quite radically in order to represent what he saw not directly, but figuratively, and to create a clear and universal aesthetic language in his canvases. At its most famous paintings Since the 1920s, Mondrian has reduced forms to lines and rectangles, and the palette to the simplest. The use of asymmetrical balance became fundamental in the development of modern art, and his iconic abstract works remain influential in design and are familiar popular culture and in our days.

"The Gray Tree" is an example of Mondrian's early transition to style abstractionism. Three-dimensional wood is reduced to the simplest lines and planes, using just grays and blacks.

This painting is one of a series of works by Mondrian that were created with a more realistic approach, where, for example, trees are represented in a naturalistic manner. While later works became increasingly abstract, for example, the lines of a tree are reduced until the shape of the tree is barely noticeable and secondary to the overall composition of vertical and horizontal lines. Here you can still see Mondrian's interest in abandoning the structured organization of lines. This step was significant for Mondrian's development of pure abstraction.

Robert Delaunay

Delaunay was one of the most early artists abstractionism style. His work influenced the development of this direction, based on the compositional tension that was caused by the opposition of colors. He quickly fell under the neo-impressionist coloristic influence and very closely followed the color scheme of works in the abstract style. He considered color and light to be the main tools with which one can influence the reality of the world.

By 1910, Delaunay made his own contribution to Cubism in the form of two series of paintings depicting cathedrals and the Eiffel Tower, which combined cubic forms, dynamic movement and bright colors. This new way the use of color harmony helped to separate this style from orthodox cubism, receiving the name Orphism, and immediately influenced European artists. Delaunay’s wife, artist Sonia Turk-Delone, continued to paint in the same style.

Delaunay's main work is dedicated to the Eiffel Tower - famous symbol France. This is one of the most impressive of a series of eleven paintings dedicated to the Eiffel Tower between 1909 and 1911. It is painted bright red, which immediately distinguishes it from the grayness of the surrounding city. The impressive size of the canvas further enhances the grandeur of this building. Like a ghost, the tower rises above the surrounding houses, metaphorically shaking the very foundations of the old order. Delaunay's painting conveys this feeling of boundless optimism, innocence and freshness of a time that has not yet witnessed two world wars.

Frantisek Kupka

Frantisek Kupka is a Czechoslovakian artist who paints in the style abstractionism, graduated from the Prague Academy of Arts. As a student, he primarily drew on patriotic themes and wrote historical compositions. His early works were more academic, however, his style evolved over the years and eventually moved into abstract art. Written in a very realistic manner, even his early works contained mystical surreal themes and symbols, which was preserved when writing abstractions. Kupka believed that the artist and his work take part in a continuous creative activity, the nature of which is unlimited, like an absolute.

“Amorpha. Fugue in two colors" (1907-1908)

Beginning in 1907-1908, Kupka began to paint a series of portraits of a girl holding a ball in her hand, as if she were about to play or dance with it. He then developed more and more schematic images of it, and eventually received a series of completely abstract drawings. They were made in a limited palette of red, blue, black and white flowers. In 1912, at the Salon d'Automne, one of these abstract works was publicly exhibited in Paris for the first time.

Modern abstract artists

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, artists, including Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Kazemir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky, have been experimenting with the shapes of objects and their perception, and also questioning existing canons in art. We have prepared a selection of the most famous contemporary abstract artists who decided to push their boundaries of knowledge and create their own reality.

German artist David Schnell(David Schnell) loves to wander through places that used to be filled with nature, but are now cluttered with human buildings - from playgrounds to factories. Memories of these walks give birth to his bright abstract landscapes. Giving free rein to his imagination and memory, rather than to photographs and videos, David Schnell creates paintings that resemble computer virtual reality or illustrations for science fiction books.

When creating her large-scale abstract paintings, the American artist Christine Baker(Kristin Baker) draws inspiration from the history of art and the racing of Nascar and Formula 1. She first gives her work dimension by applying several layers of acrylic paint and covering the silhouettes with tape. Christine then carefully peels it off, revealing the underlying layers of paint and making the surface of her paintings look like a multi-layered multi-colored collage. At the very last stage of the work, she scrapes off all the irregularities, making her paintings feel like an x-ray.

In her works, the artist of Greek origin from Brooklyn, New York, Eleanna Anagnos(Eleanna Anagnos) explores aspects Everyday life that often escape people's attention. During her “dialogue with the canvas,” ordinary concepts acquire new meanings and facets: negative space becomes positive and small forms increase in size. Trying to breathe “life into her paintings” in this way, Eleanna tries to awaken the human mind, which has stopped asking questions and being open to something new.

Giving birth to bright splashes and smudges of paint on the canvas, the American artist Sarah Spitler(Sarah Spitler) strives to reflect chaos, disaster, imbalance and disorder in her work. She is attracted to these concepts because they are beyond human control. Therefore, their destructive power makes Sarah Spitler's abstract works powerful, energetic and exciting. Besides. the resulting image on canvas made from ink, acrylic paints, graphite pencils and enamel emphasizes the ephemerality and relativity of what is happening around.

Inspired by architecture, the artist from Vancouver, Canada, Jeff Dapner(Jeff Depner) creates multi-layered abstract paintings consisting of geometric shapes. In the artistic “chaos” he creates, Jeff seeks harmony in color, form and composition. Each of the elements in his paintings is connected to each other and leads to the next: “My works explore compositional structure[paintings] through the relationships of colors in the chosen palette...". According to the artist, his paintings are “abstract signs” that should take viewers to a new, unconscious level.

Text: Ksyusha Petrova

THIS WEEK AT THE JEWISH MUSEUM AND TOLERANCE CENTER The exhibition “Abstraction and Image” by Gerhard Richter ends - the first personal exhibition in Russia of one of the most influential and expensive contemporary artists. While at the recently extended exhibition of Raphael and Caravaggio and the Georgian avant-garde at the Pushkin Museum. There are queues for A.S. Pushkin; you can see Richter in the comfortable company of a couple of dozen visitors. This paradox is due not only to the fact that the Jewish Museum is much inferior in popularity to Pushkin or the Hermitage, but also to the fact that many are still skeptical about abstract art.

Even those who are familiar with Sovriska and understand well the significance of the “Black Square” for world culture are put off by the “elitism” and “inaccessibility” of abstraction. We mock the works of fashionable artists, are amazed at the auction records and fear that behind the facade of art criticism terms there will be emptiness - after all, the artistic merits of works that resemble children's scribbles sometimes raise doubts among professionals. In fact, the aura of “inaccessibility” of abstract art is easy to dispel - in this instruction we tried to explain why abstraction is called “Buddhist television” and from which side to approach it.

Gerhard Richter. November 1/54. 2012

Don't try to find out
what the artist wanted to say

In the halls where Renaissance paintings hang, even a not very prepared viewer can find his way: at least he can easily name what is depicted in the painting - people, fruits or the sea, what emotions the characters experience, whether there is a plot in this work, whether they are familiar him participants in the events. In front of the paintings of Rothko, Pollock or Malevich, we do not feel so confident - there is no object on them that we can catch our eye on and speculate about it in order, like in school, to find out “what the author wanted to say.” This is the main difference between abstract, or non-objective, painting and the more familiar figurative painting: the abstract artist does not strive to depict the world, he does not set himself such a task.

If you look closely at the last two centuries of history Western art, it becomes clear that the rejection of the subject in painting is not the whim of a bunch of nonconformists, but a natural stage of development. In the 19th century, photography appeared, and artists were freed from the obligation to depict the world as it is: portraits of relatives and beloved dogs began to be made in a photo studio - it turned out faster and cheaper than ordering an oil painting from a master. With the invention of photography, the need to meticulously copy what we see in order to store it in memory has disappeared.

← Jackson Pollock.
Shorthand figure. 1942

TO mid-19th century, some began to suspect that realistic art was a trap. Artists perfectly mastered the laws of perspective and composition, learned to depict people and animals with extraordinary accuracy, acquired suitable materials, but the result looked less and less convincing. The world began to change rapidly, cities became larger, industrialization began - against this background, realistic images of fields, battle scenes and nude models seemed outdated, divorced from the complex experiences of modern man.

The Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, Fauvists and Cubists are artists who were not afraid to re-question what is important in art: each of these movements drew on the experiences of the previous generation, experimenting with color and form. As a result, some artists came to the conclusion that contact between the author and the viewer occurs not through projections of reality, but through lines, spots and strokes of paint - so art got rid of the need to depict anything, inviting the viewer to feel the unclouded joy of interacting with color , shape, lines and texture. All this was perfectly combined with new philosophical and religious teachings - in particular, theosophy, and the locomotives of the Russian avant-garde, Wassily Kandinsky and Kazimir Malevich, developed their own philosophical systems in which the theory of art is connected with the principles of an ideal society.

In any unclear situation, use formal analysis

Here's a nightmare that every modern art lover can find himself in: imagine standing in front of what the guidebook says is a delightful painting by Agnes Martin and feeling absolutely nothing. Nothing but irritation and slight sadness - not because the picture gives you such feelings, but because you don’t understand at all what is drawn here and where you need to look (you’re not even sure that the curators hung the work the right way). In such a situation, formal analysis comes to the rescue, with which it is worth starting to get acquainted with any work of art. Exhale and try to answer a few children's questions: what do I see in front of me - a painting or a sculpture, graphics or painting? With what materials and when was it created? How can you describe these shapes and lines? How do they interact? Are they moving or static? Is there depth here - which elements of the image are in the foreground and which are in the background?

← Barnett Newman. Untitled. 1945

The next stage is also quite simple: listen to yourself and try to determine what emotions what you see evokes in you. Are these red triangles funny or alarming? Do I feel calm or does the picture weigh on me? Test question: Do I try to figure out what it looks like, or do I let my mind interact freely with color and shape?

Remember that it is not only the picture that is important, but also the frame - or lack thereof. In the case of the same Newman, Mondrian or the “Amazon of the avant-garde” Olga Rozanova, the rejection of the frame is a conscious choice of the artist, which invites you to discard old ideas about art and mentally expand its boundaries, literally go beyond.

To feel more confident, you can remember a simple classification of abstract works: they are usually divided into geometric (Piet Mondrian, Ellsworth Kelly, Theo van Doesburg) and lyrical (Helen Frankenthaler, Gerhard Richter, Wassily Kandinsky).

Helen Frankenthaler. Orange Hoop. 1965

Helen Frankenthaler. Solarium. 1964

Don't judge "drawing ability"

“My child/cat/monkey can do no worse” is a phrase that is said every day in every museum of modern art (perhaps they thought of installing a special counter somewhere). The easy way to answer such a claim is to snort and roll your eyes, complaining about the spiritual poverty of those around you; a difficult and more productive way is to take the question seriously and try to explain why the skill of abstractionists should be assessed differently. The great semiologist Roland Barthes wrote a heartfelt essay about the seeming “childishness” of Cy Twombly’s scribbles, and our contemporary Susie Hodge devoted an entire book to this topic.

Many abstract artists have a classical education and excellent academic drawing skills - that is, they are able to draw a nice vase of flowers, a sunset on the sea or a portrait, but for some reason they don’t want to. They choose a visual experience that is not burdened by objectivity: the artists seem to make the task easier for the viewer, preventing him from being distracted by the objects depicted in the picture, and helping him to immediately immerse himself in an emotional experience.

← Cy Twombly. Untitled. 1954

In 2011, researchers decided to check whether paintings in the genre of abstract expressionism (this direction of abstract art raises the most questions) are indistinguishable from the drawings of small children, as well as the art of chimpanzees and elephants. The subjects were asked to look at pairs of pictures and determine which of them were made by professional artists - in 60–70% of cases, respondents chose “real” works of art. The advantage is small, but statistically significant - apparently, in the works of abstractionists there really is something that distinguishes them from the drawings of a smart chimpanzee. Another new study has shown that children themselves can distinguish the works of abstract artists from children's drawings. To test your artistic flair, you can take a similar quiz on BuzzFeed.

Remember that all art is abstract

If your brain is ready for a little overload, consider the fact that all art is inherently abstract. Figurative painting, be it the still life “Boy with a Pipe” by Picasso or “The Last Day of Pompeii” by Bryullov, is a projection of a three-dimensional world onto a flat canvas, an imitation of “reality” that we perceive through vision. There is also no need to talk about the objectivity of our perception - after all, the capabilities of human vision, hearing and other senses are very limited, and we cannot evaluate them on our own.

Marble David is not a living guy, but a piece of stone that Michelangelo gave a shape that reminds us of a man (and we got the idea of what men look like from our life experiences). If you get very close to Gioconda, you will still think that you see her delicate, almost living skin, a transparent veil and fog in the distance - but this is essentially an abstraction, it’s just that Leonardo da Vinci very painstakingly and for a long time applied layers of paint on top of each other to create a very subtle illusion. The revelation trick works more clearly with the Fauvists and Pointillists: if you approach a Pissarro painting, you will see not Montmartre Boulevard and the sunset at Eragny, but many colorful small brushstrokes. Rene Magritte’s famous painting “The Treachery of Images” is dedicated to the illusory essence of art: of course, “this is not a pipe” - these are just strokes of paint well placed on the canvas.

← Helen Frankenthaler.
Nepenthe. 1972

The Impressionists, whose competence we do not doubt today, were the abstractionists of their time: Monet, Degas, Renoir and their friends were accused of abandoning realistic depiction in favor of conveying sensations. “Careless” strokes, visible to the naked eye, “strange” composition and other progressive techniques seemed blasphemous to the public of that time. At the end of the 19th century, the impressionists were seriously accused of “inability to draw,” vulgarity and cynicism.

The organizers of the Paris Salon had to hang Manet's Olympia almost from the ceiling - there were too many people who wanted to spit on it or pierce the canvas with an umbrella. Is this situation very different from the 1987 incident at Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum, when a man attacked abstract artist Barnett Newman's Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue III with a knife?

Mark Rothko. Untitled. 1944-1946

Don't neglect context

The best way to experience a piece of abstract art is to stand in front of it and look and look and look. Some works can plunge the viewer into deep existential feelings or ecstatic trance - most often this happens with paintings by Mark Rothko and objects by Anish Kapoor, but works can also have a similar effect unknown artists. Although the emotional connection is most important, you should not refuse to read the labels and get acquainted with the historical context: the title will not help you understand the “meaning” of the work, but it can give you interesting ideas. Even dry titles like “Composition No. 2” and “Object No. 7” tell us something: by giving his work such a name, the author encourages us to abandon the search for “subtext” or “symbolism” and focus on spiritual experience.

← Yuri Zlotnikov. Composition No. 22. 1979

The history of the creation of the work is also important: most likely, if you find out when and under what circumstances the work was created, you will see something new in it. After reading the biography of the artist, carefully prepared for you by the museum curators, ask yourself what significance this work could have had in the country and at the time when its author worked: the same “Black Square” makes a completely different impression if you know something about philosophical movements and art of the early 20th century. One more, less famous example- series “Signal Systems” by the pioneer of Russian post-war abstraction Yuri Zlotnikov. Today, colored circles on a white canvas do not seem revolutionary - but in the 1950s, when official art looked something like this, Zlotnikov’s abstractions were a real breakthrough.

Slow down

It is always better to pay attention to a few works that catch your eye than to gallop through the museum, trying to take in the immensity. Professor Jennifer Roberts from Harvard forces her students to look at one painting for three hours - of course, no one demands such stamina from you, but thirty seconds is clearly not enough for a Kandinsky painting. In his manifesto - a declaration of love for abstraction, the famous art critic Jerry Saltz calls Rothko's hypnotic paintings "Buddhist television" - it is implied that you can gaze at them endlessly.

Repeat this at home

The best way to test the seditious thought “I can draw just as well,” which sometimes arises among professional art critics, is to conduct an experiment at home. It will also be interesting in the opposite situation - if you are afraid to take up paints due to “inability to draw” or “lack of ability.” It is not for nothing that abstract techniques are used most often in art therapy: they help to express complex sensations for which it is difficult to find words. For many artists, suffering from internal contradictions and their own incompatibility with the outside world, abstraction has become almost the only way to come to terms with reality (except for drugs and alcohol, of course).

Abstract works can be created using any art medium - from watercolors to oak bark, so you're sure to find a technique that suits your liking and budget. Perhaps you shouldn’t start right away with dripping" - the analysis of Mondrian's painting "Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow" for the little ones is not a shame for adults to read. Jewish Museum, ART4

Abstraction in art!

Abstractionism!

Abstractionism- this is a direction in painting, which is highlighted in a special style.

Abstract painting, abstract art or abstract genre, implies a refusal to depict real things and forms.

Abstractionism is aimed at evoking certain emotions and associations in a person. For these purposes, paintings in an abstract style try to express the harmony of color, shapes, lines, spots, and so on. All forms and color combinations, which are located in the perimeter of the image, have an idea, their own expression and semantic load. No matter how it may seem to the viewer, looking at a picture where there is nothing except lines and blots, everything in abstraction is subject to certain rules of expression, the so-called “abstract composition”.

Abstraction in art!

Abstractionism, as a movement in painting, arose at the beginning of the 20th century simultaneously in several European countries.

It is believed that abstract painting was invented and developed by the great Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky.

The recognized founders and inspirers of abstractionism are the artists Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, Frantisek Kupka and Robert Delaunay, who in their theoretical works shaped approaches to the definition of “Abstractionism”. Differing in goals and objectives, their research was united in one thing: Abstractionism as the highest stage of development fine arts creates forms that are unique to art. An artist “freed” from copying reality thinks in special ways figurative images the incomprehensible spiritual principle of the universe, eternal “spiritual essences”, “cosmic forces”.

Abstract painting, which literally blew up the art world, became a symbol of the beginning new era in painting. This era means a complete transition from frameworks and restrictions to complete freedom of expression. The artist is no longer bound by anything, he can paint not only people, everyday and genre scenes, but even thoughts, emotions, sensations and use any form of expression for this.

Today, abstraction in art is so wide and varied that it itself is divided into many types, styles and genres. Each artist or group of artists tries to create something of their own, something special that could best reach a person’s feelings and sensations. Achieving this without using recognizable figures and objects is very difficult. For this reason, the canvases of abstract artists, which truly evoke special sensations and make one marvel at the beauty and expressiveness of an abstract composition, deserve great respect, and the artist himself is considered a real genius of painting.

Abstract painting!

Since the advent of Abstract Art, two main lines have emerged in it.

The first is geometric or logical abstraction, creating space by combining geometric shapes, colored planes, straight and broken lines. It is embodied in the Suprematism of K. Malevich, the neoplasticism of P. Mondrian, the Orphism of R. Delaunay, in the work of masters of post-painterly abstraction and op art.

The second is lyrical-emotional abstraction, in which compositions are organized from freely flowing forms and rhythms, represented by the work of V. Kandinsky, the works of masters of abstract expressionism, tachisme, and informal art.

Abstract painting!

Abstract art, as painting of a special personal expression, was initially in the underground for a long time. Abstract art, like many other genres in the history of painting, was ridiculed and even condemned and censored as art without any meaning. However, over time, the position of abstraction has changed and now it exists on a par with all other forms of art.

As an artistic phenomenon, Abstractionism had a huge influence on the formation and development of modern architectural style, design, industrial, applied and decorative arts.

Recognized masters of Abstract Art: Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Frantisek Kupka. Paul Klee, Piet Mondrian, Theo Van Doesburg, Robber Delaunay, Mikhail Larionov, Lyubov Popova, Jackson Pollock, Josef Albers.

Modern abstractionism in painting!

In modern fine art, abstractionism has become an important language of deep emotional communication between artist and viewer.

In modern abstractionism, new interesting directions are emerging that use, for example, special images of various color forms. Thus, in the works of Andrei Krasulin, Valery Orlov, Leonid Pelikh, the space of white - the highest tension of color - is generally filled with endless variable possibilities, allowing the use of both metaphysical ideas about the spiritual and the optical laws of light reflection.

In modern abstractionism, space begins to play new roles and forms different semantic loads. For example, there are spaces of signs and symbols that arise from the depths of archaic consciousness.

In modern abstractionism, the plot direction is also developing. In this case, while maintaining non-objectivity, the abstract image is constructed in such a way that it evokes specific associations - at different levels of abstraction.

Modern abstractionism is infinite in its boundaries: from the objective situation to the philosophical level of figurative abstract categories. On the other hand, in modern abstract painting, the image may look like a picture of some kind of fantastic world - for example, abstract surrealism.