Carlos De La Puente
1960s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
Fiberboard, Laid Paper, Oil
Mid-20th Century Abstract Expressionist Abstract Prints
Screen
People Also Browsed
1940s Modern Landscape Prints
Screen, Paper
1910s Academic Figurative Paintings
Canvas, Oil
1960s American Realist Landscape Paintings
Canvas, Oil
1940s Post-Impressionist Figurative Paintings
Oil, Canvas
1920s Surrealist Figurative Paintings
Oil, Illustration Board
2010s Danish Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Chairs
Papercord, Beech
1860s Hudson River School Landscape Paintings
Canvas, Masonite, Oil
Early 20th Century French Art Deco Vases
Glass
20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Ceramics
Ceramic
21st Century and Contemporary French Animal Sculptures
Crystal
1960s Post-Minimalist Abstract Paintings
Oil, Board
Mid-20th Century Abstract Abstract Prints
Screen
Mid-20th Century Danish Scandinavian Modern Chairs
Papercord, Oak
Mid-20th Century Realist Abstract Prints
Screen
1960s Modern Animal Paintings
Ink, Oil, Masonite
Vintage 1920s French Art Deco Table Lamps
Enamel
A Close Look at abstract Art
Beginning in the early 20th century, abstract art became a leading style of modernism. Rather than portray the world in a way that represented reality, as had been the dominating style of Western art in the previous centuries, abstract paintings, prints and sculptures are marked by a shift to geometric forms, gestural shapes and experimentation with color to express ideas, subject matter and scenes.
Although abstract art flourished in the early 1900s, propelled by movements like Fauvism and Cubism, it was rooted in the 19th century. In the 1840s, J.M.W. Turner emphasized light and motion for atmospheric paintings in which concrete details were blurred, and Paul Cézanne challenged traditional expectations of perspective in the 1890s.
Some of the earliest abstract artists — Wassily Kandinsky and Hilma af Klint — expanded on these breakthroughs while using vivid colors and forms to channel spiritual concepts. Painter Piet Mondrian, a Dutch pioneer of the art movement, explored geometric abstraction partly owing to his belief in Theosophy, which is grounded in a search for higher spiritual truths and embraces philosophers of the Renaissance period and medieval mystics. Black Square, a daringly simple 1913 work by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich, was a watershed statement on creating art that was free “from the dead weight of the real world,” as he later wrote.
Surrealism in the 1920s, led by artists such as Salvador Dalí, Meret Oppenheim and others, saw painters creating abstract pieces in order to connect to the subconscious. When Abstract Expressionism emerged in New York during the mid-20th century, it similarly centered on the process of creation, in which Helen Frankenthaler’s expressive “soak-stain” technique, Jackson Pollock’s drips of paint, and Mark Rothko’s planes of color were a radical new type of abstraction.
Conceptual art, Pop art, Hard-Edge painting and many other movements offered fresh approaches to abstraction that continued into the 21st century, with major contemporary artists now exploring it, including Anish Kapoor, Mark Bradford, El Anatsui and Julie Mehretu.
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