Abstract Art And How Abstraction Arose

Abstract art and how abstraction arose

Throughout history we can always find opposite opinions about practically everything, which is good and that it is bad, that rules must continue, among many more and art is no exception. We will always find a diversity of proposals in terms of art, and each one will have their good and bad things and abstraction is no exception. This is why I will talk about abstraction and in turn examples about abstract art, which are good or bad, useful or useless, are an important part of our culture and how art has evolved with the passing of time.

For a long time, abstraction has become an indispensable means or instrument to think and explain, but if we analyze it well, what does it mean that something is abstract or abstraction? Well, if we think about the definition of abstract, we are talking about a quality with exclusion of the subject, and is usually understood as an idea or concept found in the mind, something undetermined or inaccurate. So the term of abstraction, arising from this word, has to do with an abstract idea or mental construction without correspondence of reality, which is used daily to understand, contextualize and explain mental activities that are not clear. In this way, abstraction can be found in multiple fields, such as science, philosophy, computer science, psychology and on which I am going to rely on this essay, abstraction in art.

To exemplify abstraction we can take the concept of cube, a body formed by 6 square sides of equal length, but in reality nothing is really a cube, the sides are not exactly the same, or the corners are slightly curved.

While the 3 objects are different, we could say that they are cubes although they really are not. We abstract some of reality, in this case a cube, and we categorize it as such although it is not really.

In the late nineteenth century, the avant -garde arise as a rejection of the past, experimentation and the search for the new, so the belief that nature (mimesis), to the landscape, people and that a painting had a painting was broken of higher quality was the one that looked more like reality. In this way, we begin to move away from figurative art, which represents concrete and recognizable figures of the real world, emerging an abstract art that uses forms and perspectives that are not a copy of reality and that proposes a different reality with a language of its own language shapes, colors and lines. An example of this is Choisy’s technique to present a plant, raised and section in a single image, suppressing the details and presenting the reader an elegant diagram and immediate understanding, which at the time were very convincing, but in the background These are pure abstractions (Reyner Banham, Choisy, Rationalization and Technical, 1960).

Abstract art applies to all types of arts, for example in architecture, where it is inevitable to refer to Theo Van Doesburg and its neoplasticist manifesto, where the architecture of abstraction is clear in its function, where only by reading the first one and It shows that an abstraction in the architecture that was being worked is beginning to reach an abstraction, where it mentions that “the abolition of the concept of form in the sense of a pre -established type is essential for the healthy development of architecture and art in general. Instead of using and imitating previous styles as models, a new architecture problem must be raised completely ”. (Theo Van Doesburg, towards a plastic architecture, 1924). It is no longer to copy what is done, is to create something new, taking into account the new needs, economy, function, among others.

Although many avant -garde did not have a representation in the architecture due to its short duration, an expressionist example is the glass pavilion that takes the idea of ​​the dome, but represents it, designs and builds in other materials and under other geometries. In this case, through the glass material, a great possibility of constructive and space and atmosphere are explored. This dome presents a particular geometry and presented a game of lights with different color glass, so there was a game in emotional sensations along the pavilion, with a route where one was inside and an exterior that represented, a Little what was seen in the paintings, such as Kandinsky with the flashes and different colors that had been representing.

You begin to create something new, as Adolf Bahne (1918) says “It is not the crazy whim of a poet to affirm that glass architecture will bring a new culture. It is a fact.”(Kenneth Framptom, the glass chain. European architectural expressionism, 1910-1925) (Crystal Pavilion, Bruno Taut, 1914)

If we talk about abstraction, we cannot ignore suprematism, and Kazimir Malevich who sought simplicity and abstraction as the maximum expression of art. Kazimir Malevich Baso his work in the force of color and geometry, example of this is its total abstraction, where he paints a “black square on white background”, presenting us the supremacy of nothing, through a basic geometric figure such as it is the square. This black square is limited to a single black block, while the rest of the paint is white, so that our view does not have any limit, creating certain sensations or emotions. These sensations are subjective, what a person produces may not be what produces another person, but they can become similar. "The work of art is an artificial physical object aimed at producing subjective reactions" (Amédée Ozenfant and Charles and. Jeanneret, about plastic, 1920)

Continuing the aforementioned idea of ​​Amedée Ozenfant and Charles and. Jeanneret (on plastic, 1920) where sensations are studied directly perceptible by the eye, we are told that the different types of lines and shapes produce different sensations either calm, or tension, among others. In the same way the colors express us different sensations, for example, the blue calm and red alters. It is important to emphasize that, according to Ozenfant and Jeanneret, a moron or a man without talent, he cannot do a work of art, this because these sensations “can only be triggered by the choice and ordering of the primary elements”. For them, a work of art is worth the genius that reveals it. Of which I interpret that with a genius they refer to those who propose a composition, modules, color, stroke, primary elements and a consequence of what the result will be, that sensations or emotions will be presented to us, so anyone could not do it.

In conclusion I can say that abstraction arose from a breakdown of what was being done in ancient times, where something new began to be created and not representing reality as it is. Abstraction is related to many issues where we can find art, where the figurative representation is neglected and replaced by a visual language which has different meanings depending on factors such as the form, color, lines, composition, modules and that Its main objective is to produce different sensations and interpretations that, although, can generate debate, are part of the identity of each artistic element.