Fash 205

FINAL REPORT
ABSTRACT ART

SUBMITTED BY : RIJA IMRAN

DATE : 31-5-18
 ABSTRACT ART DEFINATION

Abstract art is a creative interplay between the conscious and the unconscious with the conscious making all the final
decisions and is in control throughout . It is a trend in painting and sculpture in the twentieth century. Abstract art seeks to
break away from traditional representation of physical objects. It explores the relationships of forms and colors, whereas more
traditional art represents the world in recognizable images. Abstract art is modern art which does not represent images of our
everyday world. It has color, lines and shapes (form), but they are not intended to represent objects or living things. Often the
artists were influenced by ideas and philosophies.
Abstract art is found in painting and in sculpture. There are also many works of art which are partly abstract, and
partly representational. And there are many artists who work in abstract and other types of modern art. Abstract art uses
a visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from
visual references in the world.
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.
 Why I choose abstract ?
• Art for me is freedom. Freedom of being yourself , of expressing yourself you inner conflicts, your mood , your emotions, ,
You are not bound to make sense to anyone , to be accepted or liked by everyone , abstract has to be accepted the way it is ,
just as we humans want to be accepted the way we are. . There is utter freedom to depict whatever they feel like depicting
and emphasize on feelings, behaviors and ideas. Nobody expects art to know limitations, after all.

• Its daring , “Abstract art dares our visual system to interpret an image that is fundamentally different from the kind of
images our brain has evolved to reconstruct. Therefore, we are looking at art in a different way. Peeling away the layers of the
work to find the meaning.

• . You are open to make mistakes , open to any medium , open to experiment , change directions, and try new materials and
ways of working. You don’t get tired of abstract art because it keeps evolving with time and keeps you engaged , and
occupied . Artist don’t need to follow any guidelines and there is certainly nothing that can hold them back in expressing what
they wish to display. In order to be kept creative and avoid using the conventional patterns used from the beginning of time in
painting, abstract artists visualize what they wish to express and do so most eloquently .

• You eliminate unnecessary details and focus on only whats important , the main idea , you simplify down to shapes and
forms and solid colors , depicting how life should be leaded , by simplifying every problem and lastly by focusing on whats
important . . There are vivid colors and amazingly bizarre patterns combined in harmony and the result is most of the times
fascinating. There is no right or wrong and artists know better than imitating the work of others.

• It reflects culture. You must see that art is the interaction of the artist with his environment. He/she reflects his/her culture
in his/her own unique way; it's what makes him/her an artist. ... Arts reflect history, culture and society in one way or another!
History, culture and society is reflected by art.

• Abstract art has a life of its own derived from the painters soul . Abstract is the best way of self discovery.

• Its mysterious, the painting alone without a single written word , leaves the half story untold . I believe there is always an
untold experience , conflict , secret , story behind abstract art .

• Puts everyone to thinking . Its not easily understood , abstract needs time to be analyzed , understood , digested . Abstract
art comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable
MAIN ARTIST OF ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM

Pablo Picasso
Wassily Kandinsky
Andy Warhol
Jackson Pollock
Mark Rothko
Piet Mondrian
Willem de kooning
Henri matisse
Kazimir Malevich
Barnett newman
10 artworks by Henri matisse
The snail
The work was created from summer 1952 to early 1953. It is pigmented with gouache
on paper, cut and pasted onto a base layer of white paper measuring 9'4​³⁄₄" × 9' 5".
LocationTate Gallery, London
The sorrows of the king
The Sorrows of the King is a collage using cut out paper shapes by Henri Matisse from
1952. It was made from paper he had coloured with gouache paint and is mounted
on canvas. Its size is 292 x 386 cm. It is his final self-portrait
Location: Centre Georges Pompidou
Blue nude
Blue Nude, an early 1907 oil painting on canvas by Henri Matisse, is located at the
Baltimore Museum of Art as part of the Cone Collection. Matisse painted the nude
when a sculpture he was working on shattered.
Location: Baltimore Museum of Art
Blue nude 2
Blue Nude II is the second artwork of the Blue Nudes series of cut-outs
by Henri Matisse, completed in 1952.
Location: Centre Georges Pompidou
The conversation
The Conversation, a painting by Henri Matisse dating from 1908–1912, depicts the
artist and his wife facing each other before a background of intense blue
Location: Hermitage Museum
Le bonheur de vivre
Le bonheur de vivre is a painting by Henri Matisse. Along with Picasso's Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon, Le bonheur de vivre is regarded as one of the pillars of early
modernism
Location: Barnes Foundation
Window at Tangier
Window at Tangier by Henri Matisse; also referred to as La Fenêtre à Tanger, Paysage
vu d'une fenêtre, and Landscape viewed from a window, Tangiers. An example of
Matisse's paintings after the colorful revolution of his Fauvism period. Created 1912.
Location: Pushkin Museum
Les toits de Collioure
Les toits de Collioure is a painting by Henri Matisse from 1905. It is an example of the
style that Matisse employed during his early period of Fauvism.
Location: Hermitage Museum
Le Bateau
Le Bateau is a paper-cut from 1953 by Henri Matisse. The picture is composed from
pieces of paper cut out of sheets painted with gouache, and was created during the
last years of Matisse's life
Locations: Museum of Modern Art, New York
Music
Music is a painting made by Henri Matisse in 1910. The painting was commissioned
by Sergei Shchukin, who hung it with Dance on the staircase of his Moscow mansion.
Location: Hermitage Museum
Analysis of art works
 JOY OF LIFE
Joy of Live, the second of his important imaginary compositions, is typical of these. He used a
landscape he had painted in Collioure to provide the setting for the idyll, but it is also influenced by
ideas drawn from Watteau, Poussin, Japanese woodcuts, Persian miniatures, and 19th century
Orientalist images of harems. The scene is made up of independent motifs arranged to form a
complete composition. The massive painting and its shocking colors received mixed reviews at the
Salon des Indépendants. Critics noted its new style - broad fields of color and linear figures, a clear
rejection of Paul Signac's celebrated Pointillism.

Joy of Life is a large-scale painting (nearly 6 feet in height, 8 feet in width), depicting an Arcadian
landscape filled with brilliantly colored forest, meadow, sea, and sky and populated by nude figures
both at rest and in motion. As with the earlier Fauve canvases, color is responsive only to emotional
expression and the formal needs of the canvas, not the realities of nature. The references are many,
but in form and date, Bonheur de Vivre is closest to Cézanne's last great image of bathers.
Wassily Kandinsky - Untitled (First Abstract Watercolor), 1910, Watercolor and Indian ink and pencil on paper,
19.5 × 25.5 in, Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou

• . Wassily Kandinsky’s Untitled (First Abstract Watercolor) was painted in 1910, and is considered by art
historians to be the first purely abstract painting. The bold portrayal of vibrantly colored spots, smears and
lines foregoes all visual reference to objective reality. This painting freed artists from the bondage of
subject matter, and invited viewers to engage in an entirely new way with the concept of what an image
can be.
Piet Mondrian - Tableau I, 1921, Oil on canvas, 96.5 cm x 60.5 cm, Museum

Ludwig, Cologne, Germany

In 1921, Piet Mondrian painted his iconic Tableau I. After a period of time
experimenting with his emerging new voice, Tableau I solidified what would become
Mondrian’s defining style. The hard black lines and compartmentalized color fields
offered viewers a glimpse of purified geometry and mathematical precision. The clean
lines and precision of the work made no reference to anything other than
form, color and line. The work ushered in a style that would influence generations of
painters, sculptors, architects and designers, and continues to guide creative thinkers
today
Jackson Pollock - Full Fathom Five, 1947 - Oil on canvas with nails, tacks, buttons, key, coins,
cigarettes, matches, etc. 50 7/8 x 30 1/8 in, © 2017 Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New York

end of the spectrum during the 1930s and

On the other

1940s were the Abstract Expressionists, also

known as the New York School. Thoroughly
rejecting the rational geography and spatial
reduction of artists like Mondrian and
Nicholson, the Ab Ex-ers sought to connect with
primal emotion in their work. No Abstract
Expressionist was as influential and successful
at embodying the style than Jackson Pollock.
A notorious alcoholic and neurotic, Pollock was inspired by psychoanalyses to reach deep within his
subconscious for inspiration. His work drew on physicality and unconscious totem images to create fierce
portrayals of modern, post-war anxiety. One of Pollock’s first drip paintings, Full Fathom Five, painted in
1947, forever changed abstract art. This work is an amalgam of his earlier brush style and his visionary drip
technique. It includes coins, cigarette butts and other random bits from his studio, projecting a level of
texture and depth entirely new to Abstraction. Full Fathom Five ushered in a turning point in Pollock’s career,
and forever changed our relationship to the canvas.
Helen Frankenthaler - Mountains and Sea, 1952 - oil and charcoal on canvas, 86 5/8 x 117 ¼
in, © 2014 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Abstract Expressionists had firmly taken over the imagination of the art world. Everywhere, artists
were striving to connect with the primeval self, the unconscious mind, and the hidden imagery of
the subconscious. In the midst of this fervor emerged a trend toward calmness, born partially from a
growing interest among many artists in Eastern philosophies like Taoism and Zen Buddhism. One of
the most profound movements to grow out of this time was an Abstract painting style known
as Color Field Painting.
The objective of Color Field Painting, as it has come to be generally understood, was to explore color
independently from subject matter, form, line, and the other constraints of image making. A
meditative quality was sought by the painters, and if successful was subsequently transferred from
the work to its viewers.
The Abstract painter Helen Frankenthaler was one of the most profound voices of the Color Field
movement. With her painting Mountains and Sea, painted in 1952, Frankenthaler introduced the
world to a new technique of painting she had invented called the “soak-stain process.” In this
process, Frankenthaler used turpentine to thin the consistency of her paints. She delicately poured
the thinned paint onto an unprimed canvas on the floor, allowing the paint to completely soak
through the canvas, giving the work an entirely new texture and appearance. The soak-stain process
created sublime fields of color that took on organic, morphing configurations touching on the
serene. Frankenthaler’s Mountains and Sea is considered to have been one of the first successes of
the Color Field Movement, and remains one of its most endearing images today.
Robert Motherwell - Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 110, 1971 - Acrylic with graphite and
charcoal on canvas, 82 x 114 in, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

In the 1970s, Robert Motherwell shook up the world of Abstraction once again with a voice
that seemed like the antithesis of Minimalism’s lure. His primal, rugged gestures conveyed
energy, strength and anxiety all at once. There was a stoic strength to them and yet
profound emotion came forth that embodied the power and freedom of pure Abstraction.
Motherwell’s defining work came in 1971, and was called Elegy to the Spanish Republic No.
110. This painting’s furious energy envelops the viewer and seems to burst off the canvas.
There is a shocking vitality to it, an aggression that transfers emotion and fury into space. At
a time when many painters considered Abstraction to have played itself out, Motherwell
injected a powerful new life force into the style. His fresh vision and confident voice helped
Abstraction endure, and continues to inspire and empower Abstract artists to this day.
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THE EARTH WITHOUT ART IS JUST
“EH”