Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual
language of form, color and line to create a composition which
may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the
world.
Western art
had been, from the Renaissance
up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of
perspective
and an attempt to reproduce an illusion of visible reality. The arts
of cultures other than the European had become accessible and showed
alternative ways of describing visual experience to the artist. By
the end of the 19th century many artists felt a need to create a new
kind of art which would encompass the fundamental changes taking
place in technology, science and philosophy. The sources from which
individual artists drew their theoretical arguments were diverse, and
reflected the social and intellectual preoccupations in all areas of
Western culture at that time.
Abstract art, nonfigurative art, nonobjective art, and
nonrepresentational art are loosely related terms. They are similar,
but perhaps not of identical meaning.
Abstraction indicates a departure from reality in depiction of
imagery in art. This
departure from accurate representation can be slight, partial, or
complete. Abstraction exists along a continuum. Even art that aims
for verisimilitude of the highest degree can be said to be abstract,
at least theoretically, since perfect representation is likely to be
exceedingly elusive. Artwork which takes liberties, altering for
instance color and form in ways that are conspicuous, can be said to
be partially abstract. Total abstraction bears no trace of any
reference to anything recognizable. In geometric
abstraction, for instance, one is unlikely to find references to
naturalistic entities. Figurative
art and total abstraction are almost mutually
exclusive. But figurative
and representational
(or realistic)
art often contains partial abstraction.
Both geometric
abstraction and lyrical
abstraction are often totally abstract. Among the very numerous
art movements
that embody partial abstraction would be for instance fauvism
in which color is conspicuously and deliberately altered vis-a-vis
reality, and cubism,
which blatantly alters the forms of the real life entities
depicted.
