Artistic Currents - Abstractionism

Abstractionism or abstract art includes paintings, sculptures and graphic art which don't represent recognizabale objects, but rather their ideas and concepts. Abstractionism can trace it's origins at the end of the 19th century, when European young artists, despising the traditional imitation and representation of nature, with careful detail and precision, chose to abandon these ideals in favour of imagination, unconscious and the depicting of the essence.

Abstraction later developed in the beginning of the 20th century, alongside other movements as Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, and Futurism, as these styles borrowed elements and influenced each other.

The first artist credited to be a truly abstract one is Vasily Kandinsky, the pioneer of this genre of paintings, who began working in this manner around 1910. The style was more developed and broadened by the De Stijl group in the Netherleands, under the guidance and leadership of Piet Mondrian, between 1915 - 1920. Yet abstract art truly fluorished after World War I, and in the 30s it was already the main characteristique of Western Art, especially in Europe.

Abstract art truly made a huge impact in the U.S. only after World War II, when Abstract Expressionism was the next big thing, both in painting, sculpure and graphic arts. Since then it has been one of the most popular and apreciated styles of modern art, and in the 21st century still had it's admirers and icon figures.

Abstract Artists :

Vasily Kandinsky
Piet Mondrian
Barnett Newman
Mark Rothko
Willem de Kooning
Jackson Pollock
Franz Kline
Hans Hofmann
Yves Klein
John McLaughlin
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