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Abstract art is a
fairly modern artistic genre. Before the invention of photography, art
– paintings, drawings, sculpture – was simply a means by which people
captured the world around them. Look back at portraiture, landscapes
or figures from the Renaissance through the 19th century, and
you’ll see how accurately natural light, colors, skin tones, forms, etc.
were reproduced. In fact, many famous paintings from this era look like
photographs.
In the nineteenth
century, when photography became the most common method of visual
representation, art began to grow in new directions, freeing artists to
break with the traditions that had been adhered to for several
centuries. This new “modern” era, which began with impressionism,
includes an abstract period that started in the early twentieth
century. Rather than aim for a true representation of objects in
nature, abstract art sought to do the opposite. While this genre is
difficult to summarize with a single blanket statement, it is safe to
say that most abstract works usually do not have a distinguishable
subject. They often aimed to capture the emotion or essence of a
subject, rather than a visual reproduction of it. Looking back on the
genre as a whole, several variations on the ‘non-representational’ theme
emerge. These include Cubism (Pablo Picasso) which depicted solid
objects through the placement of rigid shapes and forms and Abstract
Expressionism (Jackson Pollock), which emphasized the spontaneous use of
color and brushstrokes.
Browse through our
wide collection of abstract art prints, including works by Jackson
Pollock, Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O’Keeffe, Henri
Matisse, Mark Rothko and more.
The link above will lead you to hundreds of
abstract art posters, brought to you by Red Jellyfish and our partners at
Art.com. For more art posters, visit our selection of
fantasy art,
still life images, and
architecture. |
