In the 1940s, a group of artists in New York declared representational art dead; abstract art work was the fashion. At that time, it was a shocking concept but its adherents prevailed in the contemporary galleries and eventually the museums.
Hans Hoffman, fresh from Europe, opened a school in New York to advance the ideas set forth by Picasso and Matisse. But he took it further; to complete abstraction. He believed, like many other artists, that with the invention of the camera, the exact replication of objects or locales was no longer relevant. He proffered the ideals of an inner reality, subjective and transcendental.
Color, shape and line triumphed. The use of space, what was there, as well as what was not there, became the blueprint. A landscape no longer was made up of clouds, trees, land or water but nebulous forms defining a space. By the beginning of the 1950s Hoffman had a following. Notoriety for his art theories took the art world by storm.
From his school, a movement was born. Abstract Expressionism soon came to dominate the art world. America was no longer in the shadow of Europe when it came to the arts. It was now cutting-edge. This new art also went by the names non-figurative, nonobjective and non-representational art.
Many famous artists are categorized under the Abstract Expressionist banner: Lee Krasner and her husband, Jackson Pollock. Helen Frankenthaler and her husband, Robert Motherwell, Elaine de Kooning and her husband, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still and Arshile Gorky are the more prominent names. These were the pioneers of a radical ideal that today is taken for granted.
But by the late 1950s abstract art work had taken the world by storm. Now the representational artists were the ones ridiculed in avant garde circles. They were virtually marginalized as non-figurative art became the fashion. Total abstraction means no recognizable reference and this concept reigned until until Pop Art took over in the 1960s. Abstraction ruled the art market for just over a decade but left an enduring legacy.
Hans Hoffman, fresh from Europe, opened a school in New York to advance the ideas set forth by Picasso and Matisse. But he took it further; to complete abstraction. He believed, like many other artists, that with the invention of the camera, the exact replication of objects or locales was no longer relevant. He proffered the ideals of an inner reality, subjective and transcendental.
Color, shape and line triumphed. The use of space, what was there, as well as what was not there, became the blueprint. A landscape no longer was made up of clouds, trees, land or water but nebulous forms defining a space. By the beginning of the 1950s Hoffman had a following. Notoriety for his art theories took the art world by storm.
From his school, a movement was born. Abstract Expressionism soon came to dominate the art world. America was no longer in the shadow of Europe when it came to the arts. It was now cutting-edge. This new art also went by the names non-figurative, nonobjective and non-representational art.
Many famous artists are categorized under the Abstract Expressionist banner: Lee Krasner and her husband, Jackson Pollock. Helen Frankenthaler and her husband, Robert Motherwell, Elaine de Kooning and her husband, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still and Arshile Gorky are the more prominent names. These were the pioneers of a radical ideal that today is taken for granted.
But by the late 1950s abstract art work had taken the world by storm. Now the representational artists were the ones ridiculed in avant garde circles. They were virtually marginalized as non-figurative art became the fashion. Total abstraction means no recognizable reference and this concept reigned until until Pop Art took over in the 1960s. Abstraction ruled the art market for just over a decade but left an enduring legacy.
No comments:
Post a Comment