What is abstract art

Abstract art uses a visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world.^[1] Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an attempt to reproduce an illusion of visible reality. The arts of cultures other than the European had become accessible and showed alternative ways of describing visual experience to the artist. By the end of the 19th century many artists felt a need to create a new kind of art which would encompass the fundamental changes taking place in technology, science and philosophy. The sources from which individual artists drew their theoretical arguments were diverse, and reflected the social and intellectual preoccupations in all areas of Western culture at that time.^[2]

Abstract art, nonfigurative art, nonobjective art, and nonrepresentational art are loosely related terms. They are similar, but perhaps not of identical meaning.

Abstraction indicates a departure from reality in depiction of imagery in art. This departure from accurate representation can be slight, partial, or complete. Abstraction exists along a continuum. Even art that aims for verisimilitude of the highest degree can be said to be abstract, at least theoretically, since perfect representation is likely to be exceedingly elusive. Artwork which takes liberties, altering for instance color and form in ways that are conspicuous, can be said to be partially abstract. Total abstraction bears no trace of any reference to anything recognizable. In geometric abstraction, for instance, one is unlikely to find references to naturalistic entities. Figurative art and total abstraction are almost mutually exclusive. But figurative and representational (orrealistic) art often contains partial abstraction.

Both geometric abstraction and lyrical abstraction are often totally abstract. Among the very numerous art movements that embody partial abstraction would be for instancefauvism in which color is conspicuously and deliberately altered vis-a-vis reality, and cubism, which blatantly alters the forms of the real life entities depicted

Gallery

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  Albert Gleizes, 1910–12, Les Arbres (The Trees), oil on canvas, 41 x 27 cm. Reproduced in Du "Cubisme", 1912
 
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  Arthur Dove, 1911–12, Based on Leaf Forms and Spaces, pastel on unidentified support. Now lost
 
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  Francis Picabia, 1912, Tarentelle, oil on canvas, 73.6 x 92.1 cm,Museum of Modern Art, New York. Reproduced in Du "Cubisme"
 
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  Wassily Kandinsky, 1912,Improvisation 27 (Garden of Love II), oil on canvas, 47 3/8 x 55 1/4 in. (120.3 x 140.3 cm), TheMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Exhibited at the 1913Armory Show
 
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  Pablo Picasso, 1913–14, Head (Tête), cut and pasted colored paper, gouache and charcoal on paperboard, 43.5 x 33 cm,Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
 
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  Henri Matisse, 1914, French Window at Collioure, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
 
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  Joseph Csaky, Deux figures, 1920, relief, limestone, polychrome, 80 cm, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo
 
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  Albert Gleizes, 1921,Composition bleu et jaune (Composition jaune), oil on canvas, 200.5 x 110 cm
 
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  Paul Klee, Fire in the Evening, 1929
 
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  Barnett Newman, Onement 1, 1948, Museum of Modern Art, New York
 
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  Fernand Léger 1919, The Railway Crossing, oil on canvas, 53.8 x 64.8 cm, The Art Institute of Chicago
 
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  Theo van Doesburg, Neo-Plasticism: 1917, Composition VII (the three graces)