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Art: Abstract Expressionism
Abstract expressionism is a loosely defined art label used to describe art, which can offer psychological content as expressed in expressionism and, at the same, does not have any reference to the visual world. Abstract expressionism originated from nonrepresentational ideology in which painters started moving away from painting images that are of a visual world. The label first begun in the US and gained popularity during and after the Second World War.
The artists saw it as a way of painting energetic pictures representing the way they were feeling from inside. Painters like de Kooning and Kandinsky were changing the traditional view of visual art. These painters looked to improve the conventional beliefs and rules to give the painter freedom over his work and honesty to paint anything that they can use to communicate on a direct emotional plane. In abstract expressionism, artists were defined by no rules, they were painting with no end product, and their work was mostly taking shape as they proceeded to create a painting of pure imagination and emotion. They achieved this by aggressively combining colors, shapes, and forms, which were spontaneous, and the brush technique used was mostly gestural brush strokes. In abstract expressionism, the painter ensures that the entire painting is essential, and no part dominated the other, and everything in the canvas was necessary and equal in impact. Abstract expressionism was an essential movement in the history of art because it represented freedom for painters who had freed Europe to America, where they could express their new ideas. When talking about modern art or 20th-century art, this is the movement everyone thinks of given the role it played.
From chapter 19, I am going to discuss a painting 20th-century painting by Kandinsky titled Pink Accent. The picture represents a non-representation aspect. Kandinsky had painted the art after he changed his style into non-representation art he though was more spiritual and energetic. In the painting, he used two large colors of magenta and gold, which acted as the background and unified the picture. Since, according to non-representation or abstract, paintings every element is essential, he kept the other pictorial elements in the painting smaller so that they will not suppress the control of the two-color fields. To achieve a balance and dynamic art, Kandinsky used lively colors and varying sizes of the shapes used. Pablo Picasso, one of the most famous painters of the 20th century, painted an art named Still Life with Chair-Caning. The painting’s style was Cubism. The most significant comparison between the two styles is that cubists were more of an abstract and required a close examination to find the hidden truth. Unlike Kandinsky’s art and style, which does not incorporate real-world ideas, Picasso attached bits of pieces from everyday life, which marked the invention of collage. Picasso also went ahead to combine letters from the French paper, which makes the painting filled with more real things. Cubism, as expressed by Picasso and Braque, became the birth of modern abstract art.
From chapter 20, I want to look at Andy Warhol, who was taken up pop art in an attempt to move away from abstract expressionism. The first Warhol’s art was a Campbell’s soup can in a six-foot canvas. The world was consumed in abstract art, and it felt like art lovers needed something new, which artists like Warhol presented. Contrary to what abstract expressionism advocated for, pop art was looking to bring things that we use and see and daily to the art world again. By painting things that we used daily, such as Campbell’s Soup Can, the art was simple, easily recognizable, and visually stimulating. When compared against an abstract expressionism painting by Kandinsky, the Dominant Curve, we have an appeal for emotion. In both works, the painters used emotion to come up with the arts. For abstract painters, they look to create a picture that defines what they were feeling or thinking without reference to real-life scenes or objects. For pop art, this is not the case. The artist is looking to put real-world objects that arose different feelings and emotions that they use daily basis into art. In the Dominant Curve, the entire painting is essential. All aspects are relevant, but for pop art, only the part with the can is the most important because the picture is about the can and not the canvas. In the Campbell’s Soup Can, it can be seen that Warhol was mocking abstract painters when he used only the middle part of the canvas and the left the rest of the painting. Art plays an essential role in society. Despite arousing thought and entertainment, modern through pop art shows that art can be used as a tool for awareness creation. Over the years, art has evolved with new needs and changing ideas, and there is more to come in the contemporary world.
Work Cited
Lewis, Richard L., and Susan Ingalls Lewis. The Power of Art, Revised. Cengage Learning, 2018.