ABSTRACT ART OF THE 20th CENTURYABSTRACT ART OF THE 20th CENTURY

From Expressionism to Abstraction

Matisse and the “Fauves” in France, and Kirchner and Kandinsky, with other Expressionists in Germany, used simplified forms and exaggerated colours to express emotion. Kandinsky in particular pushed this to the point of a painterly abstraction based upon spontaneity and improvisation. He later moved towards the use of geometric shapes.

Matisse “Backs” 1912-30 Here we see Matisse’s process of abstraction over a long period.

Wassily Kandinsky Composition IV 1911Although this appears to be an abstract painting we can decipher images of a landscape with a battle scene. This picture is analysed at http://www.artchive.com/glyphs/kandinsky/index.html

Wassily Kandinsky Improvisation 7 1910Like the other painting on this slide there is a strong landscape “feel” to this painting.

Composition VIII 1923

Red-Yellow-Blue 1925

By the 1920s Kandinsky was working with geometrical shapes and the landscape references are not as obvious.

As he was bedridden with terminal cancer Matisse could only work with coloured paper and scissors, with assistants. This massive paper collage “L’Escargot” (The Snail) is his last great work

Icarus 1947

From Cubism to Abstraction

Cubism was the first “difficult” development in 20th Century Art. Picasso’s own style changed quickly – these paintings were painted within 6 years 1906-12. His paintings first became more simplified, then fragmented, and then were built up in abstract collages. Other artists around Europe and then around the world picked up on the possibilities of these developments. Two of the most important were Piet Mondrian in Holland and Kasimir Malevich in Russia.

Piet Mondrian’s move to pure abstraction

Broadway Boogie Woogie 1942-1943 Molen (Mill); Mill in Sunlight 1908

This painting is an example of Mondrian’s “mature” style.

He did not start as an abstract painter but as a landscape painter in his native Holland.

He moved to Paris in the early years of the 20th Century and saw Picasso’s early Cubist paintings.

In the next sequence of paintings we can see how Piet Mondrian, influenced by Picasso’s Cubism, moved from Representation to Abstraction

Piet Mondrian Composition No. III White-Yellow 1935-42

Grey Tree 1911

Red Tree 1908

Apple Tree c.1911

Trees, c. 1912

Ocean 5 1915

Pier and Ocean 1915

This is Mondrian’s approach to painting seascapes, referred to as “plus and minus Cubism”. As with Picasso the compositions fade out in the corners and resolve as ovals.

Composition with Color Planes and Gray Lines 1 1918

These images come from the website of the German city of Tübingen.Can you spot the influence of the painter Mondrian in any of these images?

Kasimir Malevich – a leap into the dark

Black Square 1915

Like most artists Malevich worked through a number of different styles before he found his own. Here we see him exploring aspects of Impressionism and Cubism.

Englishman in Moscow and Soldier of the First Division – both 1914By 1914 his style included more abstract elements taken from Cubism and from Italian Futurism.

Red Square: Painterly Realism of a Peasant Woman in Two Dimensions, 1915

Suprematismo. 1915.

El Lissitzky Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge 1919.During the Russian Revolution and Civil War the artist El Lissitzky used Malevich’s “Suprematist” style to produce this poster.

dada, Surrealism and Abstraction

Joan Miró, Blue I, 1962

Joan Miro “Grand Ecart” 1969

Jean (Hans) Arp was one of the originators of dada in Zurich. Being of French ancestry, but born in German territory he did not want to fight in WW1. In collaboration with poet Hugo Ball and other artists he developed an “anti-art” style based upon play. In the collages above the paper elements are scattered at random without prior thought.

After the war he became an important sculptor and a member of the Surrealist movement.

Jean (Hans) Arp. Before my Birth. 1914. Collage.

Automatic Drawing. (1917-18)

Jean Arp Enak's Tears (Terrestrial Forms)

1917 Painted wood relief.Constellation According to the

Laws of Chance  c.1930

Jean Arp Head with Annoying Objects – 1930

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Barbara Hepworth,– Two Forms – 1933

For a slideshow of early modernist sculpture visithttp://socrates.berkeley.edu:7138/gallery/

Henry Moore Three Standing Figures, 1953

Joan Miró: The Farm 1921-22.

Figure and Dog with Sun

Surrealist paintings by Joan Miro

Joan Miro Blue 1 1962 Although nearly all of Miro’s paintings have some reference to an external reality that reference is not always obvious. Not knowing Miro’s intentions with this work means that we have to view it as an abstract work.

Abstraction after 1940

When Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and France in 1940 many leading artists chose to leave Paris, which had been the centre of Europe’s arts community, and moved to the USA. These artists included the Dutch painter Mondrian and many leading Surrealists. These Surrealists exerted a strong influence upon the younger generation of artists working in New York. This influence was in part theoretical – the Surrealists favoured chance, accident and the operations of the unconscious mind. The English artist S.W. Hayter was experimenting with the controlled pouring of paint, as was the German artist Max Ernst, who used a variety of techniques to introduce a random quality into his work.The first American artist to pick up on this was Armenian born Arshile Gorky, who had moved from representation, through a Picasso inspired abstraction to an abstract Surrealist style. Gorky died in 1948, before contemporary American art “took off”.

The Artist and His Mother, 1926-36.

Organization, 1933-36

Arshile Gorky.

Untitled, summer 1944. Oil on canvas, 167 x 178.2 cm.

Arshile Gorky

Painting, 1936-37

The first of the young American artists to make a big public impact was Jackson Pollock.Pollock had been trained in the “regionalist” style and his early work.His style moved from the figurative to Picasso-influenced abstraction. The first paintings to attract notice were densely worked paintings with mythological titles or titles referring to Native American themes.

The Moon Woman 1942

The She-Wolf 1943

Jackson Pollock

By 1947 Pollock had moved to total abstraction in a signature style in which the paint was poured, dripped or splashed onto the canvas, with the brush rarely touching the surface. These paintings are loose, gestural and layered.The composition is described as “all-over” (although the edges are less worked than the centres).

Number 23, 1948

Full Fathom Five 1947

Dutch born Willem de Kooning was the most highly regarded of the young Americans. His style was rarely purely abstract. The development of his style can be seen in his series of images of women from the 1940s and 50s.By 1953 his work has become more gestural, more aggressive, butis still based upon an underlying drawing.

Woman 1944

Seated Woman 1952Woman V 1952/3

Russian born Mark Rothko ’s work is very different to that of either Pollock or De Kooning. His style is quietist and meditational. His work is described as Colour Field Painting.As his style developed he moved towards greater and greater simplicity. By the 1950s his paintings were composed of soft edged rectangles of colour stacked on top of each other.

Red Abstract, 1944 Vessels of Magic1946

No. 2. 1954

Mark Rothko

Untitled 1957

Aboriginal artist Rover Thomas once attended an exhibition of his paintings at the National Gallery where he spotted a striking work by the American abstractionist Mark Rothko. He stared at it intently for a time and declared: "That bugger paints just like me!"

Rothko late in his life produced works in series to be installed in purpose-built spaces. The most ambitious project was the Rothko Chapel - a non-denominational meditation space in Houston, Texas. He spent three years working on the paintings for this space.Another space was created for the Tate Gallery in London.

Rothko’s work can be related to the more severe forms of abstraction that developed under the umbrella name of Minimalism, though his contemporary Ad Reinhardt is closer to it’s spirit. Sadly Reinhardt’s paintings do not reproduce well and need to be seen in real life.

Tate Gallery installation

Rothko Chapel Central Triptych

Abstract Painting, No. 34, 1964

These two images give some idea of the difficulties of presenting Reinhardt’s paintings in a slide show.

Abstract Painting No. 9, 1960-1966

Ad Reinhardt was a cartoonist as well as a painter and theorist. Here he pithily puts forward his case for abstract art.

Abstract painting after 1960

Just as Pop Artists used everyday objects and images as the source of their artworks, making neutral, uninvolved art so their abstract contemporaries produced deadpan abstract paintings without the expressionism of Pollock and de Kooning and without the Spirituality of Rothko.

Andy Warhol

Roy Lichtenstein

Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein even made cartoon-like pictures of Abstract Expressionist paintings.

Are these “Abstract Paintings” or are they pictures of paintings?

Frank Stella Hyena Stomp  1962

Frank Stella Sinerli Variations Squared Colored Ground

Morris Louis Isis, 1954American painter Morris Louis developed a style based upon the pouring of transparent acrylic paint (Magna) onto canvas. These pourings create in this case translucent veils of overlaid colour, each colour subdued by those underneath or above. As with Jackson Pollock the composition is “all over”, with the edges and corners less worked.

Morris LOUIS Dalet ZayinHere, the overlaid colours are close in hue and reinforce each other, giving strong blue-blacks and greys with glowing reds. The reduced num,ber of layers allows us th see the shapes of the pourings.

Donald Judd Untitled 1969

Donald Judd Works installed at the artist’s space at Marfa, Texas

Painter/sculptor Donald Judd represents an extreme of Minimalism. Much of his later work was concerned with mathematical permutations of proportion and with mathematical box shapes. Seeing one in isolation is not the best way to view the work – a gallery full is (to me at least) fascinating.

Peter Booth Painting 1971

PETER BOOTH Black Door 1974

Peter Booth made his name with a series of massive Black Paintings. He later moved into a kind of visionary representation.

Agnes Martin Untitled 1997

Tony Smith - Sculptures

Gerhard Richter

Abstract Painting 1992

Self Portrait 1992