The origins of abstract art can rightly be attributed to the imagination of man. Abstract art is distinguishable from fantasy art, which makes imaginative characters and myths its subject. It is closer to reality as it reflects the real in figurative terms. In other words, abstract art depicts real forms in a simplified or rather reduced way, keeping the original subject the same.
Abstract art did not originate all of a sudden nor is it the outcome of the 20th century thinkers. In the Jewish and Islamic religion, depiction of human beings was banned. As such, they took recourse to all forms of decorative and non-figurative arts or calligraphy.
Wassily Kandinsky is regarded as the inventor of non-figurative art in the 20th century. Gradually, his paintings moved out of figurative subjects. In 1910, he created the first figurative work of art- a watercolor sans any reference to reality. Kandinsky not only became the first abstract artist, he also took pains to promote it as a theorist. After Kandinsky, it was the Russian painter, Kasimir Malewich, who took abstract art to the next level. Melewich’s paintings mostly focused on simple geometrical forms.
The landmark events in the mid-twentieth century changed the course of abstract art. The World War II, persecution of Jewish people by Hitler, and denunciation of modern art by the Nazis led to the immigration of hundreds of avant-garde European artists into the United States of America, especially New York. This created a new wave in the American art scenario prompting the birth of Abstract Expressionism.
Abstract expressionism is more a concept of performing art than a style. This movement stresses the trend of pushing the conventional boundaries beyond all limits. Some of the famous artists of this movement are Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko.
Currently, there are two primary segments of abstract art. One segment, known as Color Field Abstract Art, features unified blocks of color. Mark Rothko is one of the pioneers of this genre. The second segment includes multiple genres- Surrealism, Expressionism, Cubism, and Action painting. Regardless of all these influences, the core of abstract art paintings remains the capturing of the essence of the artist’s subconscious on canvas.
By: Suzanne
Posts Tagged ‘Jackson Pollock’
Abstract Art: a Breakthrough in Artistic Expression
November 8th, 2009Why I hate modern art (part 2) – Tillie the Dog Artist
October 14th, 2009Some while ago I wrote an article that attempted to explain why I hate modern art.
The thrust of my article was that modern art appreciation has shifted the emphasis from the finished artwork to the act of creation itself. Consequentially, a splattered mess of paint can be considered great art if it has a provenance to explain its purpose and meaning.
To take an example, the first and possibly most famous piece of conceptual art was Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain”. Fountain was a signed urinal, purchased, not made by the artist. Duchamp claimed it to be a work of art because; he chose the item, he gave it a name, placed it in a different context, and so created a new thought for that object.
The Times newspaper recently ran a story on “Tillie”, the ten-year-old Jack Russell terrier who paints (it also ran an item on a tree that draws, but let’s not go there). Tillie was reported to have notched up her 20th solo exhibition, earned more than $100,000 from sales of her work, visited five countries and drawn comparisons with the abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock. Her “artworks” sell for between $100 and $2,000.
The Hollywood Art and Culture Centre in Hollywood, Florida, is the latest gallery to put the dog’s output on show, with an exhibition entitled “The Tillamook Cheddar Mid-Career Retrospective, 1999-2009”.
Tillie “works” by scratching and biting at overturned painted vellum; the pressure of her claws, paws and teeth transferring the coloured pigment on to paper below.
Her “art” has been featured by CBS News, Good Morning America, Inside Edition, Fox News, The National Geographic Network, Animal Planet, The New York Post, The Washington Times, Esquire Magazine, and many others worldwide. Time Out New York described it as “a masterpiece of conceptualism.”
Jane Hart, curator of the Hollywood Art and Culture Centre is quoted as saying, “if you put her work before someone without telling them that a dog did it, they wouldn’t be able to tell it apart from a human artist’s”. The remark appears to be an indication of how “good” Tillie’s painting is!
So I know its all a bit of a joke, but there is a serious side to the story.
In 2006, media mogul David Geffen sold Jackson Pollock’s “No. 5 1948”, for $140 million. This made Pollock’s work the most expensive painting in modern history.
Given the comparisons between Tillie’s and Jackson Pollock’s outputs, it’s no surprise that society can willingly accept the scratchings of a dog as meritorious art!
We have been taught not to question the merit of art: if someone tells us something is art (e.g. puts it in a gallery), we believe that to be true. We are afraid to express an opinion for fear of ridicule. And yet, it would be perfectly reasonable to look at “No. 5”, and remark that it looked like a dog had made it.
Tillie is doing what dogs do. She is scratching and biting. She is not composing, conceptualising, or expressing herself. It is utter madness to portray the outcome of her clawing at paint and paper as art. Placing value on a similar painting produced by a human is insanity. The only genius at work here is the seller’s – not the artist’s.
Portraits by John Burton
By: John Burton
