When Picasso and Braque and then Kandinsky started to experiment with abstract art it was all a big enigma....shocking and strange. Now it's accepted but hardly understood.
Now, It's a mainstream mystery....but we can at least accept that it's decorative.
You don't need to listen to what art historians say...many have just jumped on the bandwagon themselves and will waffle on.
Who knows how a micro chip works or what is relativity theory ? And how many of us need to know?
We don't need to know too about how things work to appreciate the benefits of science and technology.
Nor do we need to know too much about art. We need to know what we like. Having said that a more educated analysis of art may bring us to a much higher appreciation of modern, abstract art.
Like music...people appreciate pop music as it is easy to assimilate with catchy beats and repetitive lyrics that quickly brainwash the mind. So that you can't get the tune out of your head.
More sophisticated music may take much longer to assimilate but turns out to be music of a higher quality and develops into a classic status. In the same way an abstract painting may take longer for the viewer to appreciate but has far more intellectual longevity.
Abstract art goes way back to prehistoric times. The earliest abstract artists seem to have been the cave artists of places like Lascuaux and Chauvette. The cro-magnon abstract art group. Though they didn't know it.
Also some authoritative books on Art History say that the Yantra or Mandalas of India are the earliest examples of abstract art, going back over 5000 years. I guess they mean in civilisation. Yantras have esoteric meaning as they usually relate to various Gods and Godesses the most well known Yantra being Shri Yantra the 64 interlocking triangle Yantra of Laxmi the Godess of Fortune.The Yantra depicts the deity in an impersonal abstract form. As a diagram rather than in the personal form.
Abstract art is a departure from reality. It may or may not have it's beginning in a real subject or even an idea but the Abstract artist moves away from the reality of the subject or idea often until it disappears completely.
So what starts out as one thing in the beginning may turn out to be something quite different in the end.
Abstract paintings may be totally abstract in that they may bear no resemblance to anything recognisable or they may be only partially abstract or semi abstract and so a bit or quite a lot recognisable.
The abstract artist may make changes to natural colours or form to create paintings that may be recognisable but still bear little resemblance to what we see around us in real life.
So the semi-abstract artist takes liberties with form and colour. Stretching our imagination, Exaggerating things and going crazy in the name of artistic licence. Karl Appel for example..riding his bike through his paintings...and Gilbert and George with their poo paintings...tcch, tcch....but thank God they're digital art.
Anyway lets move on.
The impressionists must be regarded as early semi abstract painters, Paul Cezanne was hugely influntial as were Monet, Pissaro, Seurat and Munch.
Vincent van Gogh for example could be described as a semi-abstract artist and in his life his art was appreciated by very few people. Paul Gauguin is another semi-abstract artist who had a great influence on the Abstracts of the early 20th century.
One of the earliest semi-abstract art movements started around 1900 was Fauvism. Led by Henri Mattise and Andre Derain. Le Fauves means Wild Beasts. I'm not sure if they came up with the name or it was given by others as an unflattering appellation in the way that Tracy Emin gave the Stuckists their name. But the suggestion is that these Artists were wild and undisciplined. That they were breaking all the rules of art. Using mostly unnaturally vivid primary colours.
Though the Fauvist movement lasted only a few years,things were beginning to change in art.
Picasso and George Braque followed with Cubism and the Abstract art movement was well underway. Most of Picasso's work is semi-abstract. The imagery is always recognisable but he has moved all the bits around. His work may also sometimes be described as Narrative abstract as it often tells a story. Guernica for example describes the bombing of the town of Guernica by Fascist planes during the Spanish civil war.
This is also the time of Modigliani who created beautifully elegant semi-abstract figurative art. His nudes and Portraits with elongated necks and limbs which were influenced by African tribal masks, examples of which were arriving in Europe from Colonial Africa. We must also not forget the semi abstract work of Klimt..
Sorry if I've left anyone out....and who's the Jewish Russian emigre guy who painted Carcasses of animals and sides of meat....???? Anyway Damian Hirst thinks he's just great...Though being a vegetarian his work does not appeal to me at all. But you can see the influence on Damian in his Mother and Child Divided...Gruesome stuff but thought provoking. I prefer some of Damians titles more than the actual work.
As I always say..If a picture says a 1000 words then a relevant title is a brief synopsis.
Early pure Abstract art is that of Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee,...The Bauhaus bunch.
I always thought that Kandinsky's and later Miro's work was quite spontaneous. Then their notebooks were discovered and it turns out that there paintings were quite planned out. I suppose you might expect that of Kandinsky but I was disappointed to find that Miro's work was planned too.
I'll skip forward to American Abstraction...Notables are. Rothko....Rothko's abstract is usually hung in darkened rooms. At the Tate for example. It's like entering a church or funeral parlor. But it makes it all a bit depressing and Rothko committed suicide after all. He took it all too seriously.
Willem De Kooning...His work seems very splishy, sploshy....and vaguely representational but if those paintings Woman 1 and 2 are the way he sees women he needs help. I hear that he has Alzheimer's disease so he can't remember much from one minute to the next. So critics are challenging the value of the work he does now that he's ill. I'm not sure but what about painting from the subconscious mind. May be his work is better now.
Jackson Pollack....I liked the movie of his life and he was certainly innovative. Didn't he say in interview that there is no mistake in his work or he doesn't use the mistake...I must disagree Jacko. Sometimes the mistakes in Abstract Expressionist art are the best parts. I find that often the buyer or dealer will say...
''ooooh look at that part how did you manage to get that amazing effect...'' Oh, it took hours to get that part right I say..LOL. But I don't mind to admit mistakes but I call it the hand of God, Divine Intervention.....but may be that's what Jackson meant too. Another premature death.
Helen Frankenthaler...I like Helens work a lot....I can't say I was influenced by her but I would like to have been. You see I discovered her work only recently and I see that she uses some of my techniques or rather techniques that I figured out on my own by trial and error, experimentation or empirical speculation...Call it you want. I taught myself.
So I feel that me and Helen have a kind of connection. I'd love to meet her...I'm not even sure if she's alive...I should Google her.
I'd like to ask ''Helen, how did you get that amazing effect''....I would hope that she say's..'' Oh, that bit took hours to get right''