3 Amazing Types of Abstract Art
What are the 3 types of abstract art? Whenever we talk about abstract art it helps to understand that there are several types of this amazing art genre.
Around the late 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, several movements changed the meaning of abstract art. Terms like minimalism, surrealism and fauvism came into being.
Many artists began to create and refine their own individual styles of abstract art. Willem de Kooning, Ad Reinhardt, Helen Frankenthaler, Elaine de Kooning and Jackson Pollock are just a few artists who influenced abstract art forever.
What is abstract art?
Abstract art in its initial emergence was the manipulation and distortion of realistic representation of the world around us. However, it also quickly developed into a total abstraction and distanced itself from real objects.
Artists rely on colours, shapes, forms and lines to create their abstract artworks as an expression. An expression of their thoughts, ideas, beliefs and imagination.
I have written a full article about the meaning, definition and history. What is Abstract Art? will give a better insight into this amazing type of art.
You can also have a look at a great video, What is Abstract Art? which is quite enjoyable to watch and learn about abstract art.
What are the 3 types of abstract art?
Abstract art can be a complete or partial abstraction. Several types of abstract art include surrealism, fauvism, dadaism, symbolism, futurism, minimalism, non-representational, expressionism, impressionism and cubism.
In this article, I will focus on the last three: Abstract Expressionism, Abstract Impressionism and Cubism.
There are a lot of details to cover these three amazing types of art. So, let’s give it a go…
Abstract Expressionism art
As an abstract artist, expressionism abstract art is one of my favourite subjects. But what is abstract expressionism? How did it become popular? Why do so many people like it? Who started abstract expressionism?
Paris served as the epicentre of art for many years. That changed after the Second World War when a group of painters from the New York City area brought interesting new developments in painting.
These artists were also known as Abstract Expressionists. All their artworks were mainly abstract and each one of them put a great emphasis on their own emotional expression.
That gave the birth of the term, the New York School. This term brought together a group of artists who were driven to make changes to the world of art, breaking away from traditional art. Artists including Robert Motherwell, Clyfford Still, Jackson Pollock and Ad Reinhardt.
The New York School
Some of the great and famous Abstract Expressionists of the New York School were:
- Willem de Kooning,
- Adolph Gottlieb,
- Ad Reinhardt,
- Hedda Sterne.
- Richard Pousette-Dart,
- William Baziotes,
- Jackson Pollock,
- Clyfford Still,
- Robert Motherwell,
- Bradley Walker Tomlin.
- Theodoros Stamos,
- Jimmy Ernst,
- Barnett Newman,
- James C. Brooks,
- Mark Rothko.
The artists were not interested in the subject or meaning of their paintings and even stopped naming their works. Instead, they emphasised discovery and an aesthetic experience, hoping to evoke strong emotions as well as different interpretations.
To them, abstract art was the perfect visual language to achieve all of this. In the 1930s, these artists together with other movement artists such as Cubism and Surrealism had their first exhibition in New York City.
All these ideas and practices, including Native American Art and even Asian calligraphy, profoundly impacted abstract artists.
Abstract Expressionism, the first American art movement
It was the first American art movement to achieve international recognition. This was largely thanks to the U.S. government, which directly supported this new style of art. Several millions of dollars were spent on promoting this unique movement.
Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg, two influential art critics, also helped wrap people’s brains around these often baffling paintings.
The way the artists dealt with abstraction is quite different depending on the artist. Each of the artists involved with the New York School developed an individual style that can be easily recognised.
Barnett Newman did his iconic existential zips, Jackson Pollock poured paint, Helen Frankenthaler soak-stained her paintings and Mark Rothko allegedly achieved the sublime in art through his fluid forms and radiant hues.
Peggy Guggenheim, Art of This Century
One name that is definitely worth mentioning is Peggy Guggenheim. She and her surrealist husband, Max Ernst, flee from Nazi Germany to America in 1941. She opened an art gallery in New York City and called it “Art of This Century”. The art gallery showed the work of modern artists such as Dali, Picasso and Barque.
Peggy Guggenheim organised solo art exhibitions for many emerging American artists including Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell and Jackson Pollock. She played a very important part in the development of the Abstract Expressionism movement in America.
Nevertheless, there are two broad categories within Abstract Expressionism: action painting and colour field painting.
Action Painting
Action painting is characterised by extreme movement and handling of paint. Sweeping brushstrokes, pouring and dripping of paint on canvas, in the case of Jackson Pollock. This unique technique earned him the nickname “Jackson the Dripper”.
Some of Pollock’s paintings are amongst the most recognised and even most expensive abstract paintings in the world.
Number 17A painting, for example, was sold for $200 million in September 2015. It is considered to be the fifth of the most expensive paintings in the world. Pollock painted it in 1948.
Colour field painting
Colour field painting was practised by artists such as Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, Helen Frankenthaler, Kenneth Noland, Ad Reinhardt and Mark Rothko.
These artists created simple compositions with large areas of flat colour to provoke a contemplative response in the viewer. Rothko created many of his paintings using multiple thin layers of paint.
This achieved a sense of atmospheric depth. Rothko wanted his paintings to do what Mozart had done in music – inspire a spiritual experience in art viewing and bring tears to the eyes of his viewers.
By the 1960s, however, these philosophical undertones of Abstract Expressionism started to clash more and more with a culture that was consumed by consumerism and the mass media, which led to the movement’s demise and the emergence of Pop Art.
Do you like Abstract Expressionism? Which style do you prefer, action painting or colour field painting? Can you connect with these paintings on a deep level or perhaps you struggle to understand them? Let me know and would appreciate it if you could share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Abstract Impressionism art
The art movement known as Abstract Impressionism got its start in New York City in the 1940s.
It entails painting a subject in an impressionistic style but with an emphasis on various degrees of abstraction, such as real-life scenes, objects, or people (portraits).
The paintings are frequently created en Plein air, a painting technique that requires the artist to work outside with the scenery directly in front of them.
The trend delicately straddles the line between absolute abstraction (the degree of which varies widely) and the acceptance of a sense of realism in the painting.
Elaine de Kooning, a painter and critic, is credited with coining the phrase “Abstract Impressionism” in the 1950s.
Lawrence Alloway’s debut show, which was preceded and legitimised by the term’s introduction and the associated artworks, took place in 1958.
After being invented by Elaine de Kooning, the phrase is widely believed to have been popularised by the artist and critic Louis Finkelstein to describe Philip Guston’s works to set them apart from the expanding area of Abstract Expressionism.
Influence, development and characterisation
The development and characterisation of Abstract Impressionism were significantly influenced by Phillip Guston’s ascent in the mid-1950s in both the social and artistic realms.
Finkelstein believed that his paintings were both oppositional to and alternatives to the aggression of Abstract Expressionism, as well as simultaneous extensions of that movement.
Finkelstein continued to use “Abstract Impressionism” to characterise new artworks and artistic processes in the 1950s in New York after coining the phrase to refer to Guston.
He asserted that new art forms offered a rare chance to redefine and reassess a group of artists who, despite having grown up with Abstract Expressionism’s objectives and standards, were more inclined to revive the principles of the traditional Impressionist movement.
Despite some detractors, like Alan Bowness, contending the movement’s pieces weren’t sufficiently distinct from earlier works, many others believed the exhibition and the movement as a whole emphasise a distinct divergence from earlier movements.
Despite this controversy, Abstract Impressionism has been considered an ideological opposition to the other post-war movements of the era, specifically its growing counter-movements, Cubism and Futurism.
Futurism concentrated on discarding the art of the past, whereas Abstract Impressionism aimed to synthesise methods from several previous movements. This comprised the 1860s Impressionist movement and the early 1900s Abstract movement.
Abstract Impressionism style
The Abstract Impressionists’ aesthetic was distinct from the Cubists’ accuracy. They chose to create a mass of colour and images that could only be recognised as a whole rather than the idea of building an image out of separate elements.
It has been said that Abstract Impressionism emerged as a result of an artist’s departure from the “expressionistic violence of the forties” and their simultaneous adoption of new abstraction techniques as well as more established foundations in nature and lyric appreciation.
Abstract Impressionists differ from classic Impressionist paintings by “keeping the Impressionist approach of gazing at a scene, but leaving out the scene… thereby giving an old style a new topic,” as Elaine de Kooning puts it.
Simply said, they remove the emphasis on specificity and accuracy from Impressionism and add abstraction to it.
Many art critics have criticised Abstract Impressionism for its legitimacy and failure to set itself apart from other movements.
A respected art critic and historian named Alan Bowness dismissed Abstract Impressionism as “simply another ‘ism'” without “the catalogue for the adoption of this new word being very convincing” after one of its early exhibits at the Arts Gallery Council in St. James Square.
The primary issue is that it can be challenging to distinguish the style from other art movements like Abstract Expressionism, Lyrical Abstraction, or Post-Impressionism.
According to Bowness, attempts to identify “certain characteristics these works share, characteristics that set them apart from other paintings of a roughly comparable type…the conclusion is all but inconclusive.”
Trying to place Abstract Impressionism’s aesthetic within other trends raises yet another point of contention.
Simon Watney and Roger Fry, two art historians, disagree on two possible contexts for Abstract Impressionism.
They concluded that it is unclear if it is a continuation of Post-Impressionism or if it is more closely tied to the Bloomsbury Abstraction era of the Abstract movement.
A lot of the artists who have been associated with the Abstract Impressionist movement, like Milton Resnick, Sam Francis, Nicolas de Stael or Jackson Pollock, are also regarded as belonging to other, more well-known movements, like Abstract Expressionism, either by their own definition or by other art critics.
The focus of Abstract Impressionism
The focus of Abstract Impressionism is on the simplification and abstraction of depicting real-life subjects, usually located close to the artists themselves.
As a result, the artwork produced is suited to the traditions of both the Impressionism and the abstract art movements and differs significantly from painting to painting, which has been viewed as a topic of contention in the movement because it forbids aesthetic consistency between works.
Similar to Impressionism, the artworks use brief brushstrokes with paint that has been “loaded” onto the painting tool.
To create a multi-layered and textured look, or “impression,” this technique entails stacking paint onto an art implement, such as a brush or a palette knife, and laying the paint onto the canvas or paper.
Paintings by abstract impressionists have been compared to late-Impressionist works in technique, such as those by Monet, but lack the representative content that is typically associated with Impressionism.
The concept of en Plein air must be embraced by the artwork for the abstract impressionist style to work.
En Plein air painting is a kind of art in which the artist paints outdoors while the landscape or subject is right in front of them.
Impressionists primarily employed this method.
However, Abstract Impression differs from traditional en Plein air artworks because the entire atmospheric impact is valued more highly than the painting’s level of accuracy or realism.
According to reports, the Abstract Impressionists were greatly influenced by contemporary breakthroughs in colour theory and shifting cultural perceptions of it.
Traditional Impressionist art frequently used soft, bright, and complementary colours to mimic the outdoor location and light sources to depict reality.
However Abstract Impressionists “did not hesitate to employ creative techniques to their painting, which were at the time considered revolutionary.”
Was Vincent Van Gogh an impressionist artist?
Van Gogh studied and employed numerous impressionist techniques. But he also considerably improved upon them and was never a key figure in the impressionist movement.
He’s more accurately categorised as a post-impressionist.
Abstract Cubism art
We are familiar with the paintings of Pablo Picasso. Between him and his friend and fellow artist, George Braque, they invented the art movement of Cubism.
What is Abstract Cubism art?
Cubism began in France in 1907 as a response to a rapidly changing world shaped by new inventions, technology, and scientific discoveries”.
Picasso’s painting, “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” (The Young Ladies of Avignon), which was painted in 1907 is considered to be among the first Cubist paintings. A new approach and a total break from the Western European art style.
The two artists, Picasso and George Braque began formulating the new visual language of modernity.
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, the painting of distorted female bodies composed of flat, abstracted geometric shapes in a compressed space, had no central vanishing point. Simply, the fundamentals of Western European painting didn’t matter anymore.
Cubism also introduced the popularity of mask-like faces in paintings. Besides Paul Cezanne, the Cubists were greatly influenced by African and Native American cultures, Assyrian and Egyptian art, and Iberian sculpture.
Imagine how strange and disturbing this radical new aesthetic must have felt for audiences of the day! So strange that after seeing Braque’s painting, “Houses at L’Estaque”, art critic Louise Vauxcelles referred to it as “bizarreies cubiques” (cubic oddities). Unaware that he had given the movement a name. This was the actual beginning of cubism!
Since the Renaissance, Western European painting has been preoccupied with creating an illusion of a three-dimensional space on a flat two-dimensional surface.
Cubism brought many changes. Braque used many viewpoints to reduce the subjects to their most basic geometrical shapes, e.g. cones and cubes and compressed them in a space where foreground and background may blend.
While drawing inspiration from Paul Cezanne’s theory that objects don’t have just one perspective.
Hence, Picasso and Braque started analysing parts of objects by rendering them from multiple perspectives.
However, it’s important to note that Cubism didn’t arrive all at once, but rather in various stages and sub-movements.
Analytical Cubism
By comparing two of Picasso’s paintings of the same subject, a guitar player, one can observe the variances. The first is from the beginning of his Blue Period and the second is from the final years of Analytical Cubism.
(Picasso’s period of painting known as the “Blue Period” took place between 1901 and 1904 and is characterised by primarily monochromatic works in blue and blue-green hues, occasionally warmed by other colours).
The second guitar player appears sliced up in two-dimensional planes overlapping to the point that the image is nearly unrecognisable.
Picasso claimed that this style of depiction more accurately conveys to the viewer what we actually see when we look at the things around us.
Like many Analytical Cubism pieces, the painting uses very few colours, because the Cubists wanted the viewer to concentrate on the shapes more than the colour.
Synthetic Cubism
Following 1912, Cubism moved into a new phase known as Synthetic Cubism. During this time, the Cubists began creating collages by sticking actual objects like cloth, coloured paper or newspapers onto the canvas in place of the subject’s original planes.
The prefix “synthetic” referred to the idea of creating a synthesis of fragments from the real world and the painting world. The Cubists further questioned the idea of “Fine Art” by borrowing items from consumer society.
This stage also introduced more colours and a lighter, more playful mood to the style.
Other important artists who worked in a Cubist style include Juan Gris, Fernand Leger, Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger and Robert Delaunay. Their impact on subsequent artistic generations is still felt today.
In Italy, the Cubists inspired Futurism. In the UK, Vorticism. In Russia, Constructivism and in Germany, Expressionism. The Dadaists and Surrealists would also pick up on a Cubist re-examination of the relationship between art reality, taking it further towards questioning the cultural assumptions of “high” and “low” art.
Cubism had established itself as the new visual language of modernity by the end of World War One. The original movement persisted into the 1920s, even though many of its leaders kept working for decades afterwards.
Picasso was probably the most famous artist in the world around that time. In 1937, he painted his famous piece, “Guernica”. The painting synthesises 40 years of the artist’s work through fractured forms, multiple perspectives and the use of newspapers, becoming one of the greatest and most famous paintings from Picasso. A masterpiece of universal quality.
Despite being a brief-lived movement, Cubism had a significant impact on 20th-century art and helped to inspire many subsequent modernist movements.
Many of its works are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, making it one of the most well-known art movements in existence today.
What do you find most interesting about Cubism? Can you think of any other movements that have had as much influence? If so, feel free to comment below.
Final thoughts about the types of abstract art
As you can see, there are a lot of details about the types of abstract art. I find non-representational abstract expressionism is the type of painting that most suits me.
I tried most types of abstract art but I was always drawn back to abstract expressionism. I felt a lot more comfortable in this type of abstract art.
Feel free to leave your comments in the section below. It is always interesting to know people’s thoughts about abstract art.
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