Abstract art work, in its early days, created quite a stir in the art world. It was not immediately understood nor accepted. With time, abstraction has been assimilated into the cultural lexicon, it no longer shocks, but it will always possess a mystery that eludes.
The philosophy of abstraction in drawing, painting and sculpture began in the studio school of Hans Hoffman in New York. His premise was that with the invention of the camera, there was no longer a need to depict subjects. All that image making, he declared, was dead. What was to be sought was an inner reality.
The use of space, the figure-ground relationship became the subject. Color harmonies reigned. Line was used but to a different purpose than previously. A landscape consisted no longer of water, trees, roads, fields or sky but an amalgamation of shapes that pushed and pulled one another. Eventually the very idea of landscape disappeared. By the 1950s, Hoffman had made his school famous and his ideals respected. The art world rapidly changed its taste.
From his school, a movement was born. Abstract Expressionism soon came to dominate the art world. America was no longer in the shadow of Europe when it came to the arts. It was now cutting-edge. This new art also went by the names non-figurative, nonobjective and non-representational art.
The Abstract Expressionist movement consisted of Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Willem de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Mark Rothko and Frank Stella, to name a handful. These were the pioneers and their works are found in all museums of modern art today. Many books have been written on these artists; while today household names, they suffered in their early careers.
But by the late 1950s abstract art work had taken the world by storm. Now the representational artists were the ones ridiculed in avant garde circles. They were virtually marginalized as non-figurative art became the fashion. Total abstraction means no recognizable reference and this concept reigned until until Pop Art took over in the 1960s. Abstraction ruled the art market for just over a decade but left an enduring legacy.
The philosophy of abstraction in drawing, painting and sculpture began in the studio school of Hans Hoffman in New York. His premise was that with the invention of the camera, there was no longer a need to depict subjects. All that image making, he declared, was dead. What was to be sought was an inner reality.
The use of space, the figure-ground relationship became the subject. Color harmonies reigned. Line was used but to a different purpose than previously. A landscape consisted no longer of water, trees, roads, fields or sky but an amalgamation of shapes that pushed and pulled one another. Eventually the very idea of landscape disappeared. By the 1950s, Hoffman had made his school famous and his ideals respected. The art world rapidly changed its taste.
From his school, a movement was born. Abstract Expressionism soon came to dominate the art world. America was no longer in the shadow of Europe when it came to the arts. It was now cutting-edge. This new art also went by the names non-figurative, nonobjective and non-representational art.
The Abstract Expressionist movement consisted of Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Willem de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Mark Rothko and Frank Stella, to name a handful. These were the pioneers and their works are found in all museums of modern art today. Many books have been written on these artists; while today household names, they suffered in their early careers.
But by the late 1950s abstract art work had taken the world by storm. Now the representational artists were the ones ridiculed in avant garde circles. They were virtually marginalized as non-figurative art became the fashion. Total abstraction means no recognizable reference and this concept reigned until until Pop Art took over in the 1960s. Abstraction ruled the art market for just over a decade but left an enduring legacy.
No comments:
Post a Comment