When talking about abstract art, we hear things like, my kid can paint that, and why people pay so much for that art. So many people don’t understand that, abstract painting is the most difficult in all types of arts. As an abstract painting artist, one should have a heightened sensitivity for colours and colour composition.
Why artists paint in this style?
Before going to the details into that, we need to know a little history about abstract art. In western art history, a painting had to traditionally represent something. Most of the rich people wanted something beautiful and nice to hand on their walls, to show off their status.
During the renaissance between the 14th and 17th century, Huge developments made in arts with highly realistic linear perspectives. Michelangelo and Leonardo da vinci were the famous artists of those times.
In the year 1870 in France, a group of artists came to known as Impressionists. The impressionist artists love to capture the impressions of the scene rather than detailed realism. Some of the famous impressionist artists of that era are Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, Pierre Auguste Renoir. Public at first haven’t accepted impressionism art in art circle until later on.
Impressionism artists want to capture moment in time. And often paint outside instead of a studio. They used visible brush strokes, and wish to show the changing colors of light. The colors were also applied side by side with little mixing, so that our eyes can mix them together. The impressionists also change content for composition. They didn’t arrange their subjects to domain the viewer’s attention; instead they blur the boundary between subject and background.
After the impressionist, came along the post impressionist. This era has great artists like, Vincent Van Gogh.
Now, let’s talk about the 20th Century artists. In 20th Century, a group of artist labeled as animals, for their use of strong colors. These artists became known as Les Fauves which means Wild Beasts. After that, they are then labeled as Fauvism. They had wild brush works in vivid colors. Their subject matter was more simplified than impressionists with the degree of abstraction.
Slightly after Fauvism came Cubism. This was pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Cubism became so influential, that it also has influenced culture and music. In cubism, objects appeared broken and reassembled. Instead of looking something from one viewpoint, these artists included many view points. It was also said; cubism also had a sound moment in different styles.
These artists started breaking art rules and breaking the idea that painting had to represent something realistic. The impressionist work looked unfinished. The Fauvists didn’t use normal colors. And cubists distorted everything. These artists let the way to show that colour, line, form and texture could be the subject for painting. This brings us to abstract art.
Abstraction was prominent in 20th century. Basically abstract art doesn’t have the recognizable subject. The abstract artists not trying to have their subjects look like something, instead they settled on color and form. It’s non representational. Abstract art also can be geometric like artwork of Mondrian. There are also other types of abstracts, such as figurative which represent emotions, sound or experience. These are big simplifications of reality. No details or recognizable objects are included. Abstract art also gave rise to abstract expressionism. Abstract expressionism is known for its messiness and extreme applications of paints.
So how can we understand the abstract art? It is good piece of artwork would be able to hold viewers attention and generate an emotional response.