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.
The new criteria centered on colors, shapes and calligraphic lines. What constituted the blank space, referred to as the ground in art school, was just as important as the forms. It was called the push/pull theory and it attracted many followers. A landscape no longer consisted of trees, water and sky. In time, the landscape ceased to exist at all. Hoffman and his approach had become famous and his students became the darlings of the art world.
Abstract Expressionism, the term decided on for the new movement, soon came to dominate the art world. America had taken off, no longer subservient to European art and art movements. Other labels were used to describe this new trend: non representational, nonobjective and non-figurative art. Whatever the term used, image making was dead.
Today the names of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko are the giants under the banner of Abstract Expressionism. Taken for granted today, nonobjective art was a radical idea. While its practitioners became household names, they had a hard time making a living in the early days, often ridiculed in the media.
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.
The new criteria centered on colors, shapes and calligraphic lines. What constituted the blank space, referred to as the ground in art school, was just as important as the forms. It was called the push/pull theory and it attracted many followers. A landscape no longer consisted of trees, water and sky. In time, the landscape ceased to exist at all. Hoffman and his approach had become famous and his students became the darlings of the art world.
Abstract Expressionism, the term decided on for the new movement, soon came to dominate the art world. America had taken off, no longer subservient to European art and art movements. Other labels were used to describe this new trend: non representational, nonobjective and non-figurative art. Whatever the term used, image making was dead.
Today the names of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko are the giants under the banner of Abstract Expressionism. Taken for granted today, nonobjective art was a radical idea. While its practitioners became household names, they had a hard time making a living in the early days, often ridiculed in the media.
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.
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