ABSTRACT ART
Strictly speaking, the word abstract means to separate or withdraw something from something else.
The term can be applied to art that is based on an object, figure or landscape, where forms have been simplified or schematised.
It is also applied to art that uses forms, such as geometric shapes or gestural marks, which have no source at all in an external visual reality. Some artists of this ‘pure’ abstraction have preferred terms such as concrete art or non-objective art, but in practice the word abstract is used across the board and the distinction between the two is not always obvious.
Abstract art is often seen as carrying a moral dimension, in that it can be seen to stand for virtues such as order, purity, simplicity and spirituality.
Since the early 1900s, abstract art has formed a central stream of modern art.
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FAMOUS PIECES OF ABSTRACT ART
Wassily Kandinsky, Composition X, 1939
Cited as an early champion of abstract painting, Wassily Kandinsky was not only a Russian painter but also an art theorist. The influence he instigated and left on the art world and on abstraction was immense as he co-founded the art group Phalanx and The New Group of Artists thereafter, staging exhibitions for his contemporaries over his years as an artist. He produced over 600 works over the span of his career, with a 1913 painting reaching his record auction price of $41.6 million in 2017.
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Jackson Pollock, Convergence, 1952
Over the short 44 years of his life, Jackson Pollock painted an impressive 363 paintings. He is most famously known for his drip techniques, and many of these dynamic paintings that he produced have made their mark on the art world and can be claimed as notable.
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ART
Piet Mondrian, Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow, 1930
‘Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow’ marked subtle turning point for Piet Mondrian’s practice. Striving to achieve complete abstraction, Mondrian believed that universal purity could be expressed through ‘Neo-Plasticism’, also known as the plastic arts. He sought balance through his works and wrote extensively about compositional harmony, he scrutinized the placement of colors, size of shapes and qualities of surfaces in his works, all with the hope of achieving a ‘stillness’ in his works.
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Joan Miro, Peinture (Etoile Bleue), 1927
Although famously known as a surrealist artist, ‘Peinture (Etoile Bleue)’ was Miro’s transition between figurative and abstract art. In 2012, ‘Peinture (Etoile Bleue)’ led Sotheby’s Evening Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art in London and fetched £23.5 million, setting a record for the artist and also making more than three times the price it achieved five years ago.
This painting is known to be one of the most important paintings in Miro’s career. Notably, the scorching blue used can be seen used in several of his future works and even went so far as to influence painters such as Mark Rothko and Yves Klein.
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