Abstract art uses

visual language A visual language is a system of communication using visual elements. Speech as a means of communication cannot strictly be separated from the whole of human communicative activity which includes the visual and the term 'language' in relation t ...

of shape, form, color and line to create a

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography * Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include ...

which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. ''Abstract art'', ''non-figurative art'', ''non-objective art'', and ''non-representational art'' are all closely related terms. They have similar, but perhaps not identical, meanings.

Western art The art of Europe, also known as Western art, encompasses the history of visual art in Europe. European prehistoric art started as mobile Upper Paleolithic rock and cave painting and petroglyph art and was characteristic of the period bet ...

had been, from the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an attempt to reproduce an illusion of visible reality. 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 Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...

science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

and

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

. 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. Abstraction indicates a departure from reality in depiction of

image An image or picture is a visual representation. An image can be Two-dimensional space, two-dimensional, such as a drawing, painting, or photograph, or Three-dimensional space, three-dimensional, such as a carving or sculpture. Images may be di ...

ry 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 impossible. Artwork which takes liberties, e.g. altering color or 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 Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork (particularly paintings and sculptures) that is clearly derived from real object sources and so is, by definition, representational. The term is often in contrast to abstract a ...

and total abstraction are almost

mutually exclusive In logic and probability theory, two events (or propositions) are mutually exclusive or disjoint if they cannot both occur at the same time. A clear example is the set of outcomes of a single coin toss, which can result in either heads or tails ...

. But figurative and representational (or realistic) art often contain partial abstraction. Both geometric abstraction and

lyrical abstraction Lyrical abstraction arose from either of two related but distinct art movement, trends in Post-war Modernist painting: * European ''Abstraction Lyrique'': a movement that emerged in Paris, with the French art critic Jean José Marchand being cr ...

are often totally abstract. Among the very numerous

art movements An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific art philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defined ...

that embody partial abstraction would be for instance

fauvism Fauvism ( ) is a style of painting and an art movement that emerged in France at the beginning of the 20th century. It was the style of (, ''the wild beasts''), a group of modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong col ...

in which color is conspicuously and deliberately altered vis-a-vis reality, and

cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...

, which alters the forms of the real-life entities depicted.

History

19th century in Europe

Patronage from the church diminished and private patronage from the public became more capable of providing a livelihood for artists. Three

art movement An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific art philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defined ...

s which contributed to the development of abstract art were

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...

Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

and

Expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

. Artistic independence for artists was advanced during the 19th century. An objective interest in what is seen can be discerned from the paintings of

John Constable John Constable (; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romanticism, Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedha ...

J. M. W. Turner Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbu ...

Camille Corot Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot ( , , ; 16 July 1796 – 22 February 1875), or simply Camille Corot, was a French landscape and portrait painter as well as a printmaker in etching. A pivotal figure in landscape painting, his vast output si ...

and from them to the Impressionists who continued the ''

plein air ''En plein air'' (; French for 'outdoors'), or plein-air painting, is the act of painting outdoors. This method contrasts with studio painting or academic rules that might create a predetermined look. The theory of 'En plein air' painting is c ...

'' painting of the Barbizon school. Early intimations of a new art had been made by

James McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter in oils and watercolor, and printmaker, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral a ...

who, in his painting '' Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket'', (1872), placed greater emphasis on visual sensation than the depiction of objects. Even earlier than that, with her "spirit" drawings, Georgiana Houghton's choice to work with abstract shapes correlate with the unnatural nature of her subject, in a time when abstraction was not yet a concept (she organized an exhibit in 1871). Expressionist painters explored the bold use of paint surface, drawing distortions and exaggerations, and intense color. Expressionists produced emotionally charged paintings that were reactions to and perceptions of contemporary experience; and reactions to

and other more conservative directions of late 19th-century painting. The Expressionists drastically changed the emphasis on subject matter in favor of the portrayal of psychological states of being. Although artists like

Edvard Munch Edvard Munch ( ; ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His 1893 work ''The Scream'' has become one of Western art's most acclaimed images. His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dread of inher ...

and

James Ensor James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor (13 April 1860 – 19 November 1949) was a Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for most of his life. He was associated with the artistic ...

drew influences principally from the work of the Post-Impressionists they were instrumental to the advent of abstraction in the 20th century.

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter whose work introduced new modes of representation, influenced avant-garde artistic movements of the early 20th century a ...

had begun as an Impressionist but his aim – to make a logical construction of reality based on a view from a single point, with modulated color in flat areas – became the basis of a new visual art, later to be developed into

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...

. Additionally in the late 19th century in Eastern Europe

mysticism Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute (philosophy), Absolute, but may refer to any kind of Religious ecstasy, ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or Spirituality, spiritual meani ...

and early

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

religious philosophy as expressed by theosophist Mme. Blavatsky had a profound impact on pioneer

geometric Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

artists like Hilma af Klint and

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstract art, abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in ...

. The mystical teaching of

Georges Gurdjieff George Ivanovich Gurdjieff ( – 29 October 1949) was a philosopher, Mysticism, mystic, spiritual teacher, composer, and Gurdjieff movements, movements teacher. Born in the Russian Empire, he briefly became a citizen of the First Republic of Arm ...

and P.D. Ouspensky also had an important influence on the early formations of the geometric abstract styles of

Piet Mondrian Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), known after 1911 as Piet Mondrian (, , ), was a Dutch Painting, painter and Theory of art, art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He w ...

and his colleagues in the early 20th century. The

spiritualism Spiritualism may refer to: * Spiritual church movement, a group of Spiritualist churches and denominations historically based in the African-American community * Spiritualism (beliefs), a metaphysical belief that the world is made up of at leas ...

also inspired the abstract art of

Kasimir Malevich Kazimir Severinovich Malevich (

and

František Kupka František Kupka (23 September 1871 – 24 June 1957), also known as ''Frank Kupka'' or ''François Kupka,'' was a Czech painter and graphic artist A graphic designer is a practitioner who follows the discipline of graphic design, eit ...

Early 20th century

Fauvism and Cubism

At the beginning of the 20th century

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...

and several other young artists including the pre-cubist

Georges Braque Georges Braque ( ; ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his alliance with ...

André Derain André Derain (, ; 10 June 1880 – 8 September 1954) was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse. In 2025, all of Derain’s work entered the public domain in the United States. Life and career Early ...

Raoul Dufy Raoul Dufy (; 3 June 1877 – 23 March 1953) was a French painter associated with the Fauvist movement. He gained recognition for his vibrant and decorative style, which became popular in various forms, such as textile designs, and public build ...

and

Jean Metzinger Jean Dominique Antony Metzinger (; 24 June 1883 – 3 November 1956) was a major 20th-century French painter, theorist, writer, critic and poet, who along with Albert Gleizes wrote the first theoretical work on Cubism. His earliest works, from 1 ...

revolutionized the Paris art world with "wild", multi-colored, expressive landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called

Fauvism Fauvism ( ) is a style of painting and an art movement that emerged in France at the beginning of the 20th century. It was the style of (, ''the wild beasts''), a group of modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong col ...

. The raw language of color as developed by the Fauves directly influenced another pioneer of abstraction,

, based on Cézanne's idea that all depiction of nature can be reduced to

cube A cube or regular hexahedron is a three-dimensional space, three-dimensional solid object in geometry, which is bounded by six congruent square (geometry), square faces, a type of polyhedron. It has twelve congruent edges and eight vertices. It i ...

sphere A sphere (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ) is a surface (mathematics), surface analogous to the circle, a curve. In solid geometry, a sphere is the Locus (mathematics), set of points that are all at the same distance from a given point in three ...

and

cone In geometry, a cone is a three-dimensional figure that tapers smoothly from a flat base (typically a circle) to a point not contained in the base, called the '' apex'' or '' vertex''. A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines ...

became, along with

, the art movement that directly opened the door to abstraction in the early 20th century.

Early abstract art

During the 1912 Salon de la Section d'Or, where

exhibited his abstract painting ''Amorpha, Fugue en deux couleurs'' (''Fugue in Two Colors'') (1912), the poet

Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire (; ; born Kostrowicki; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist and art critic of Poland, Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the ...

named the work of several artists including

Robert Delaunay Robert Delaunay (; 12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941) was a French artist of the School of Paris movement; who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism (art), Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and g ...

, '' Orphism''. He defined it as, "the art of painting new structures out of elements that have not been borrowed from the visual sphere, but had been created entirely by the artist...it is a pure art." Since the turn of the century, cultural connections between artists of the major European cities had become extremely active as they strove to create an art form equal to the high aspirations of

modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

. Ideas were able to cross-fertilize by means of artist's books, exhibitions and

manifestos A manifesto is a written declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party, or government. A manifesto can accept a previously published opinion or public consensus, but many prominent ...

so that many sources were open to experimentation and discussion, and formed a basis for a diversity of modes of abstraction. The following extract from ''The World Backwards'' gives some impression of the inter-connectedness of culture at the time: "

David Burliuk David Davidovich Burliuk (; 21 July 1882 – 15 January 1967) was a Russian poet, artist and publicist of Ukrainian origin associated with the Futurism (art), Futurist and Neo-Primitivist movements. Burliuk has been described as "the father of ...

's knowledge of

modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradit ...

movements must have been extremely up-to-date, for the second Knave of Diamonds exhibition, held in January 1912 (in Moscow) included not only paintings sent from Munich, but some members of the German

Die Brücke Die Brücke (The Bridge), also known as Künstlergruppe Brücke or KG Brücke, was a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905. The founding members were Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Karl Schmidt-R ...

group, while from Paris came work by

and

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...

, as well as Picasso. During the Spring David Burliuk gave two lectures on cubism and planned a polemical publication, which the Knave of Diamonds was to finance. He went abroad in May and came back determined to rival the almanac ''

Der Blaue Reiter ''Der Blaue Reiter'' (''The Blue Rider'') was a group of artists and a designation by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc for their exhibition and publication activities, in which both artists acted as sole editors in the almanac of the same name ...

'' which had emerged from the printers while he was in Germany". From 1909 to 1913 many experimental works in the search for this 'pure art' had been created by a number of artists:

Francis Picabia Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, writer, filmmaker, magazine publisher, poet, and typography, typographist closely associated with Dada. When consid ...

painted '' Caoutchouc'', c. 1909, ''

The Spring ''The Spring'' (or ''La Source'') is a large oil painting created in 1912 by the French artist Francis Picabia. The work, both Cubism, Cubist and Abstract art, abstract, was exhibited in Paris at the Salon d'Automne of 1912. The Cubist contribu ...

'', 1912, ''Dances at the Spring'' and ''The Procession, Seville'', 1912;

painted ''Untitled (First Abstract Watercolor)'', 1913, ''Improvisation 21A'', the ''Impression'' series, and ''Picture with a Circle'' (1911);

had painted the Orphist works, ''Discs of Newton'' (Study for ''Fugue in Two Colors''), 1912 and ''Amorpha, Fugue en deux couleurs'' (''Fugue in Two Colors''), 1912;

painted a series entitled ''Simultaneous Windows'' and ''Formes Circulaires, Soleil n°2'' (1912–13); Léopold Survage created ''Colored Rhythm'' (Study for the film), 1913;

, painted ''Tableau No. 1'' and ''Composition No. 11'', 1913. With his expressive use of color and his free and imaginative drawing Henri Matisse comes very close to pure abstraction in ''French Window at Collioure'' (1914), '' View of Notre-Dame'' (1914), and '' The Yellow Curtain'' from 1915. And the search continued: The Rayist (Luchizm) drawings of Natalia Goncharova and

Mikhail Larionov Mikhail Fyodorovich Larionov (; – May 10, 1964) was a Russian avant-garde painter who worked with radical exhibitors and pioneered the first approach to abstract Russian art. He was founding member of two important artistic groups Knave ...

, used lines like rays of light to make a construction.

Kasimir Malevich Kazimir Severinovich Malevich (

completed his first entirely abstract work, the Suprematist, '' Black Square'', in 1915. Another of the Suprematist group' Liubov Popova, created the Architectonic Constructions and Spatial Force Constructions between 1916 and 1921.

was evolving his abstract language, of horizontal and vertical lines with rectangles of color, between 1915 and 1919, Neo-Plasticism was the aesthetic which Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg and other in the group

De Stijl De Stijl (, ; 'The Style') was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 by a group of artists and architects based in Leiden (Theo van Doesburg, Jacobus Oud, J.J.P. Oud), Voorburg (Vilmos Huszár, Jan Wils) and Laren, North Holland, Laren (Piet Mo ...

intended to reshape the environment of the future.

Russian avant-garde

Many of the abstract artists in Russia became Constructivists believing that art was no longer something remote, but life itself. The artist must become a technician, learning to use the tools and materials of modern production. ''Art into life!'' was Vladimir Tatlin's slogan, and that of all the future Constructivists.

Varvara Stepanova Varvara Fyodorovna Stepanova (; – May 20, 1958) was a Russian artist. With her husband Alexander Rodchenko, she was associated with the Constructivist branch of the Russian avant-garde, which rejected aesthetic values in favour of revolutiona ...

and Alexandre Exter and others abandoned easel painting and diverted their energies to theatre design and graphic works. On the other side stood

Kazimir Malevich Kazimir Severinovich Malevich (

, Anton Pevsner and

Naum Gabo Naum Gabo (born Naum Neemia Pevsner; Russian language, Russian: Наум Борисович Певзнер; Hebrew language, Hebrew: נחום נחמיה פבזנר) (23 August 1977) was an influential sculptor, theorist, and key figure in Russia's ...

. They argued that art was essentially a spiritual activity; to create the individual's place in the world, not to organize life in a practical, materialistic sense. During that time, representatives of the Russian avant-garde collaborated with other Eastern European Constructivist artists, including Władysław Strzemiński,

Katarzyna Kobro Katarzyna Kobro (26 January 1898 – 21 February 1951) was a Polish avant-garde sculptor and a prominent representative of the Constructivist movement in Poland. A pioneer of innovative multi-dimensional abstract sculpture, she rejected A ...

, and

Henryk Stażewski Henryk Stażewski (pronounced: ; 9 January 1894 – 10 June 1988) was a Polish painter, visual artist and writer. Stażewski has been described as the "father of the Polish avant-garde" and is considered a pivotal figure in the history of Cons ...

. Many of those who were hostile to the materialist production idea of art left Russia. Anton Pevsner went to France, Gabo went first to Berlin, then to England and finally to America. Kandinsky studied in Moscow then left for the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the , was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined Decorative arts, crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., ...

. By the mid-1920s the revolutionary period (1917 to 1921) when artists had been free to experiment was over; and by the 1930s only socialist realism was allowed.

Music

As visual art becomes more abstract, it develops some characteristics of music: an art form which uses the abstract elements of sound and divisions of time.

, himself an amateur musician, was inspired by the possibility of marks and associative color ''resounding in the soul.'' The idea had been put forward by

Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet, essayist, translator and art critic. His poems are described as exhibiting mastery of rhythm and rhyme, containing an exoticism inherited from the Romantics ...

, that all our senses respond to various stimuli but the senses are connected at a deeper aesthetic level. Closely related to this, is the idea that art has ''The spiritual dimension'' and can transcend 'every-day' experience, reaching a spiritual plane. The

Theosophical Society The Theosophical Society is the organizational body of Theosophy, an esoteric new religious movement. It was founded in New York City, U.S.A. in 1875. Among its founders were Helena Blavatsky, a Russian mystic and the principal thinker of the ...

popularized the ancient wisdom of the sacred books of India and China in the early years of the century. It was in this context that

, Wassily Kandinsky, Hilma af Klint and other artists working towards an 'objectless state' became interested in the occult as a way of creating an 'inner' object. The universal and timeless shapes found in

geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

: the circle, square and triangle become the spatial elements in abstract art; they are, like color, fundamental systems underlying visible reality.

The Bauhaus

The

at Weimar, Germany was founded in 1919 by

Walter Gropius Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (; 18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-born American architect and founder of the Bauhaus, Bauhaus School, who is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture. He was a founder of ...

. The philosophy underlying the teaching program was unity of all the visual and plastic arts from architecture and painting to weaving and stained glass. This philosophy had grown from the ideas of the

Arts and Crafts movement The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America. Initiat ...

in England and the

Deutscher Werkbund The Deutscher Werkbund (; ) is a German association of artists, architects, designers and industrialists established in 1907. The ''Werkbund'' became an important element in the development of modern architecture and industrial design, parti ...

. Among the teachers were

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

, Johannes Itten,

Josef Albers Josef Albers ( , , ; March 19, 1888March 25, 1976) was a German-born American artist and Visual arts education, educator who is considered one of the most influential 20th-century art teachers in the United States. Born in 1888 in Bottrop, Westp ...

, Anni Albers, and

László Moholy-Nagy László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Kingdom of Hungary, Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by Constructivism (art), con ...

. In 1925 the school was moved to Dessau and, as the

Nazi party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

gained control in 1932, The Bauhaus was closed. In 1937 an exhibition of degenerate art, 'Entartete Kunst' contained all types of

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

art disapproved of by the Nazi party. Then the exodus began: not just from the Bauhaus but from Europe in general; to Paris, London and America. Paul Klee went to Switzerland but many of the artists at the Bauhaus went to America.

Abstraction in Paris and London

During the 1930s Paris became the host to artists from Russia, Germany, the Netherlands and other European countries affected by the rise of

totalitarianism Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition from political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and completely controls the public s ...

. Sophie Tauber and

Jean Arp Hans Peter Wilhelm Arp (; ; 16 September 1886 – 7 June 1966), better known as Jean Arp in English, was a German-French sculptor, painter and poet. He was known as a Dadaist and an abstract artist. Early life Arp was born Hans Peter Wilhelm Ar ...

collaborated on paintings and sculpture using organic/geometric forms. The Polish

applied mathematically based ideas to sculpture. The many types of abstraction now in close proximity led to attempts by artists to analyse the various conceptual and aesthetic groupings. An exhibition by forty-six members of the

Cercle et Carré Cercle is French for ''circle''. It can refer to: * Circle (administrative division) * Cercle (French colonial), an administrative unit of the French Overseas Empire * Cercle (Mali), the Malian administrative unit ** The specific Cercles of Mal ...

group organized by Joaquín Torres-García assisted by Michel Seuphor contained work by the Neo-Plasticists as well as abstractionists as varied as Kandinsky, Anton Pevsner and

Kurt Schwitters Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters (20 June 1887 – 8 January 1948) was a German artist. He was born in Hanover, Germany, but lived in exile from 1937. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dadaism, Constructivism (a ...

. Criticized by

Theo van Doesburg Theo van Doesburg (; born Christian Emil Marie Küpper; 30 August 1883 – 7 March 1931) was a Dutch painter, writer, poet and architect. He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl. He married three times. Personal life Theo van Do ...

to be too indefinite a collection he published the journal ''Art Concret'' setting out a manifesto defining an abstract art in which the line, color and surface only are the concrete reality. Abstraction-Création founded in 1931 as a more open group, provided a point of reference for abstract artists, as the political situation worsened in 1935, and artists again regrouped, many in London. The first exhibition of British abstract art was held in England in 1935. The following year the more international ''Abstract and Concrete'' exhibition was organized by Nicolete Gray including work by

Joan Miró Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , ; ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan Spanish painter, sculptor and Ceramic art, ceramist. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona ...

, Barbara Hepworth and

Ben Nicholson Benjamin Lauder Nicholson, OM (10 April 1894 – 6 February 1982) was an English painter of abstract compositions (sometimes in low relief), landscapes, and still-life. He was one of the leading promoters of abstract art in England. Backg ...

. Hepworth, Nicholson and Gabo moved to the St. Ives in Cornwall to continue their constructivist work.

Late 20th century

During the Nazi rise to power in the 1930s many artists fled Europe to the United States. By the early 1940s the main movements in modern art, expressionism, cubism, abstraction,

surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

, and

dada Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...

were represented in New York:

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, ; ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, Futurism and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Pica ...

Jacques Lipchitz Jacques Lipchitz (26 May 1973) was a Lithuanian-born French-American Cubist sculptor. Lipchitz retained highly figurative and legible components in his work leading up to 1915–16, after which naturalist and descriptive elements were muted, domi ...

André Masson André-Aimé-René Masson (; 4 January 1896 – 28 October 1987) was a French artist. Biography Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but when he was eight his father's work took the family first briefly to Lille and then to Brus ...

Max Ernst Max Ernst (; 2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German-born painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and surrealism in Europe. He had no formal artistic trai ...

, and

André Breton André Robert Breton (; ; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') ...

, were just a few of the exiled Europeans who arrived in New York. The rich cultural influences brought by the European artists were distilled and built upon by local New York painters. The climate of freedom in New York allowed all of these influences to flourish. The art galleries that primarily had focused on European art began to notice the local art community and the work of younger American artists who had begun to mature. Certain artists at this time became distinctly abstract in their mature work. During this period Piet Mondrian's painting ''Composition No. 10'', 1939–1942, characterized by primary colors, white ground and black grid lines clearly defined his radical but classical approach to the rectangle and abstract art in general. Some artists of the period defied categorization, such as Georgia O'Keeffe who, while a modernist abstractionist, was a pure maverick in that she painted highly abstract forms while not joining any specific group of the period. Eventually American artists who were working in a great diversity of styles began to coalesce into cohesive stylistic groups. The best-known group of American artists became known as the Abstract expressionists and the New York School. In New York City there was an atmosphere which encouraged discussion and there was a new opportunity for learning and growing. Artists and teachers

John D. Graham John D. Graham (, Kyiv, Ukraine – June 27, 1961, London, England) was a Ukrainian–born United States, American Modernism, modernist and Figurative art, figurative painter, art collector, and a mentor of modernist artists in New York City. B ...

and Hans Hofmann became important bridge figures between the newly arrived European Modernists and the younger American artists coming of age.

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko ( ; Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz until 1940; September 25, 1903February 25, 1970) was an American abstract art, abstract painter. He is best known for his color field paintings that depicted irregular and painterly rectangular reg ...

, born in Russia, began with strongly surrealist imagery which later dissolved into his powerful color compositions of the early 1950s. The expressionistic gesture and the act of painting itself, became of primary importance to

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter. A major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household ...

Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American Abstract Expressionism, abstract expressionist Painting, painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of th ...

, and Franz Kline. While during the 1940s Arshile Gorky's and

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning ( , ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. Born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, he moved to the United States in 1926, becoming a US citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married pa ...

's figurative work evolved into abstraction by the end of the decade. New York City became the center, and artists worldwide gravitated towards it; from other places in America as well.

21st century

Digital art Digital art, or the digital arts, is artistic work that uses Digital electronics, digital technology as part of the creative or presentational process. It can also refer to computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960 ...

hard-edge painting Hard-edge painting (also referred to as Hard Edge or Hard-edged) is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas often consist of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstra ...

, geometric abstraction,

minimalism In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...

, op art, abstract expressionism, color field painting,

monochrome painting Monochromatic painting has played a significant role in Modernism, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary Western world, Western visual art, originating with the early 20th-century European avant-gardes. Artists have explored the non-represent ...

, assemblage, neo-Dada, shaped canvas painting, are a few directions relating to abstraction in the second half of the 20th century. In the United States, ''Art as Object'' as seen in the Minimalist sculpture of

Donald Judd Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with minimalism.Tate Modern websit"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd" Retrieved on February 19, 2009. In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for ...

and the paintings of

Frank Stella Frank Philip Stella (May 12, 1936 – May 4, 2024) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. He lived and worked in New York City for much of his career befor ...

are seen today as newer permutations. Other examples include

Lyrical Abstraction Lyrical abstraction arose from either of two related but distinct art movement, trends in Post-war Modernist painting: * European ''Abstraction Lyrique'': a movement that emerged in Paris, with the French art critic Jean José Marchand being cr ...

and the sensuous use of color seen in the work of painters as diverse as

Patrick Heron Patrick Heron (30 January 1920 – 20 March 1999) was a British abstract and figurative artist, critic, writer, and polemicist, who lived in Zennor, Cornwall. Heron was recognised as one of the leading painters of his generation. Influenced ...

, Kenneth Noland, Sam Francis, Cy Twombly, Richard Diebenkorn, Helen Frankenthaler,

Joan Mitchell Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...

, and Veronica Ruiz de Velasco.

Analysis

One socio-historical explanation that has been offered for the growing prevalence of the abstract in modern art—an explanation linked to the name of

Theodor W. Adorno Theodor W. Adorno ( ; ; born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund; 11 September 1903 – 6 August 1969) was a German philosopher, musicologist, and social theorist. He was a leading member of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, whose work has com ...

—is that such abstraction is a response to (and a reflection of) the growing abstraction of social relations in

industrial society In sociology, an industrial society is a society driven by the use of technology and machinery to enable mass production, supporting a large population with a high capacity for division of labour. Such a structure developed in the Western world ...

. Frederic Jameson similarly sees modernist abstraction as a function of the abstract power of money, equating all things equally as exchange-values. The social content of abstract art is then precisely the abstract nature of social existence—legal formalities, bureaucratic impersonalization, information/power—in the world of

late modernity Late modernity (or liquid modernity) is the characterization of today's highly developed global society, societies as the continuation (or social progress, development) of modernity rather than as an element of the succeeding era known as postmo ...

. By contrast, Post-Jungians would see the quantum theories with their disintegration of conventional ideas of form and matter as underlying the divorce of the concrete and the abstract in modern art. Artist

Al Capp Alfred Gerald Caplin (September 28, 1909 – November 5, 1979), better known as Al Capp, was an American cartoonist and humorist best known for the satirical comic strip ''Li'l Abner'', which he created in 1934 and continued writing and (w ...

offered the simpler explanation that abstract art was "A product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered."

Gallery

File:Albert Gleizes, 1910-12, Les Arbres, oil on canvas, 41 x 27 cm. Reproduced in Du "Cubisme", 1912.jpg,

Albert Gleizes Albert Gleizes (; 8 December 1881 – 23 June 1953) was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise on ...

, ''Les Arbres (The Trees)'', 1910–12, oil on canvas, 41 × 27 cm. Reproduced in '' Du "Cubisme"'', 1912 File:Arthur Dove, 1911-12, Based on Leaf Forms and Spaces, pastel on unidentified support. Now lost.jpg, Arthur Dove, ''Based on Leaf Forms and Spaces'', 1911–12, pastel on unidentified support (now lost) File:Francis Picabia, 1912, Tarentelle, oil on canvas, 73.6 x 92.1 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York.jpg,

, ''Tarentelle'', 1912, oil on canvas, 73.6 × 92.1 cm,

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, New York. Reproduced in '' Du "Cubisme"'' File:Vassily Kandinsky, 1912 - Improvisation 27, Garden of Love II.jpg,

, ''Improvisation 27'' (''Garden of Love'' II), 1912, oil on canvas, 120.3 × 140.3 cm, The

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

, New York. Exhibited at the 1913

Armory Show The 1913 Armory Show, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, was organized by thAssociation of American Painters and Sculptors It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, as well as one of the many exhibition ...

File:Pablo Picasso, 1913-14, Head (Tête), cut and pasted colored paper, gouache and charcoal on paperboard, 43.5 x 33 cm, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.jpg,

Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

, ''Head'' (''Tête''), 1913–14, cut and pasted colored paper, gouache and charcoal on paperboard, 43.5 × 33 cm, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh File:Porte-Fenetre a Collioure 1914.jpg,

, ''French Window at Collioure'', 1914,

Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

, Paris File:Hilma af Klint Svanen.jpg, Hilma af Klint, ''Svanen'' (''The Swan''), October 1914-March 1915, No. 17, Group IX, Series SUW (this abstract work was never exhibited during af Klint's lifetime) File:Theo van Doesburg Composition VII (the three graces).jpg,

, ''Composition VII'' (''The Three Graces''), 1917, neoplasticism File:Leger railway crossing.jpg,

, ''The Railway Crossing'', 1919, oil on canvas, 53.8 × 64.8 cm, The Art Institute of Chicago File:Joseph Csaky, Deux figures, 1920, relief, limestone, polychrome, 80 cm, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Holland.jpg, Joseph Csaky, ''Deux figures'', 1920, relief, limestone, polychrome, 80 cm, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo File:Albert Gleizes, 1921, Composition bleu et jaune (Composition jaune), oil on canvas, 200.5 x 110 cm DSC00547.jpg,

, ''Composition bleu et jaune'' (''Composition jaune''), 1921, oil on canvas, 200.5 × 110 cm File:Piet Mondrian - Lozenge Composition with Yellow, Black, Blue, Red, and Gray - 1921 - The Art Institute of Chicago.jpg,

, ''Composition with Yellow, Black, Blue, Red, and Gray'', 1921,

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...

File:Fire in the Evening by Paul Klee in the MOMA.jpg,

, ''Fire in the Evening'', 1929 File:Carlsund Rapid (1930).jpg, Otto Gustaf Carlsund, ''Rapid'', 1930, a concrete art restaurant mural, Stockholm File:Newman-Onement 1.jpg, Barnett Newman, ''Onement 1'', 1948,

, New York

References

Sources

* * * *

External links

The term "Abstraction" spoken about at Museum of Modern Art by Nelson Goodman of Grove Art Online

Tate UK "Abstract art is..."

Abstract Art Demystified
{{DEFAULTSORT:Abstract Art Art movements P Modern art Paintings by movement or period

History

19th century in Europe

Early 20th century

Fauvism and Cubism

Early abstract art

Russian avant-garde

Music

The Bauhaus

Abstraction in Paris and London

Late 20th century

21st century

Analysis

Gallery

See also

References

Sources

External links