Abstract Painting

We explain what abstract painting is, its history, characteristics and types. Also, the main abstractionist painters.

What is abstract painting?

Abstract painting, along with abstract sculpture, was one of the manifestations of the artistic movement born at the beginning of the 20th century known as abstract art or abstractionism.

Abstractionism was characterized by opposing figurative art which was the art that imitated the forms of reality. Abstract art proposed its own visual language, based on shapes, colors and lines. In addition to having been an artistic movement that developed at a time in history, today the adjective “abstract” is used to describe a painting that does not imitate visible forms.

Abstract painting manifested itself in different ways through different techniques and expressive strategies, from the commitment to geometry to more free or intuitive aspects. Thus, it gave rise to various movements. It had its most prominent moment between the 1950s and 1960s, and an important dialogue with the decorative arts and graphic design.

His influence on modern and contemporary art has been significant and continues.

• See also: Avant-garde

History of abstract painting

The first work of abstract painting was the series paintings for the temple by the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (1862-1944), made between 1906 and 1915. In this series, Klint attempted to represent his spiritual world through geometric figures, vibrant colors and complex patterns.

Klint never made his paintings known during his lifetime and He expressly requested that they be shown 20 years after his death. Her paintings were first exhibited in 1986 and only then was she recognized as a precursor of abstractionism.

Until that moment, Vasili Kandinsky (1866-1944) had been considered the pioneer of abstract art, thanks to the work that he himself called First abstract watercolor (1910). In 1911, Kandinsky wrote Of the spiritual in arta fundamental theoretical work in which he presented his ideas about what he called lyrical abstraction (subjective, free, expressive and with loose brushstrokes).

Kandinsky's postulates positioned abstractionism as a modern and international artistic movement to which artists from France, Russia, Germany and the United States later joined.

But they were not the only ones to try a new language for painting. Other artistic experiences, such as the following, significantly influenced the development of abstractionism:

• In 1905, the Austrian-German Adolf Hölzel proposed a color system close to abstraction. That same year he carried out his work Composition in redfully abstract, and in 1917 he carried out a pictorial series in which he related his color system to music.
• The French painter Francis Picabia (1879-1953) experimented around 1910 with freer uses of form, color and texture. In the 1920s he moved away from his Dada stage and began to explore lyrical abstraction. His works from this period are characterized by the use of soft colors, organic shapes and fluid lines.
• A group of more than twenty artists (including Jean Metzinger (1883-1956), Albert Gleizes (1881-1953) and Fernand Léger (1881-1955) created in the studio of Jacques Villon (1875-1963) in the city of Puteaux, the movement Section D'or (1911-1914). This group tried to go beyond cubism, and to do so they used geometric figures and mathematical bases in artistic composition.
• The French couple formed by Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979) and Robert Delaunay (1885-1941) developed in 1912 a movement called “simultaneism” (simultaneously), based on the theories about color of the French chemist Eugéne Chevreul (1786-1889).
• The Russian Kasimir Malevich (1879-1935) initiated Suprematism in 1915, a fundamental movement of non-objective art (that is, art without reference to visible reality), which had followers such as Aleksandr Rodchenko (1891-1956), Liubov Popova ( 1889-1924), Varvara Stepanovna (1885-1918) and Jean Pougny (or Ivan Puni, 1892-1970).
• In 1917, the Dutchman Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), who was part of the De Stijl group (a movement that sought the integration of the arts and “total art”), founded neoplasticism, a movement that sought pure abstraction through of geometric shapes, straight lines and primary colors.

Types of abstract painting

Abstract painting had two main aspects: one rationalist and geometric, and another linked to intuition and the relationship with musical forms. These two aspects gave rise to two large types of abstract painting:

• Expressive abstract painting. It investigates the subjective and energetic gesture, intuition and emotionality. His works are organic, suggestive, spontaneous and expressive. Lyrical abstractionism, abstract expressionism and informalism correspond to this artistic form.
• geometric abstract painting. He aspires to a certain degree of objectivity and plans the work based on rationalist, logical and impersonal principles, such as geometry and mathematics. Suprematism, Russian constructivism and concrete art are typical of this type of abstraction.

Renowned abstractionist painters

Some of the most famous artists of pictorial abstractionism were:

• Hilma af Klint (1862-1941). She was a Swedish painter, pioneer of abstract art. In his works made from 1906 onwards he demonstrated a high development of abstract language, with flat colors and geometric shapes. His work was not recognized until 1986, when his hundreds of paintings were exhibited for the first time.
• Vasily Kandinsky (1866-1944). He was a Russian painter, precursor of abstractionism and art theorist. He began painting at the age of 30 and was a renowned artist of his time, although his work was not valued for political reasons in the then-nascent Soviet Union. He trained in Germany and lived in Munich until the Nazis closed the Bauhaus School, where he taught, in 1933. For this reason he emigrated to France, where he lived for the rest of his life.
• Piet Mondrian (1872-1944). He was a Dutch avant-garde painter, member of De Stijl and creator, with Theo van Doesburg, of neoplasticism. Along with Kandinsky and Malevich, he is considered one of the greatest representatives of abstractionism, a movement to which he arrived after dabbling in naturalism and symbolism. His work and theories greatly influenced other arts of the 20th century such as design, architecture, decoration and sculpture.
• Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935). He was a Russian painter of Polish origin, creator of Suprematism, one of the main avant-garde movements in Russia. He reduced the elements in his works to a minimum, invented a new artistic language and was valued by the incipient October Revolution, after which he was appointed director of a prestigious studio of the state art workshops in Petrograd. He became one of the great figures of Soviet and world art.
• Willem De Kooning (1904-1997). He was a painter born in Holland and a nationalized American, a central figure of abstract expressionism. His works are characterized by their expressive force, their spontaneous and energetic gesture, their textures and their vibrant tones. He generated a unique style that masterfully combined figuration with abstractionism.

• contemporary art
• Expressionism
• Primitive art
• Fauvism

References

• Pioneers. Women artists of the Russian avant-garde. (sf). www.museothyssen.org. https://www.museothyssen.org/
• Tate. (2017). Abstract Art – Art Term | tate. https://www.tate.org.uk/
• Topics and central works. (sf). Moderna Museet I Stockholm. https://www.modernamuseet.se/