Tess Jaray
1970s Abstract Abstract Prints
Screen
1980s Abstract Geometric Abstract Paintings
Acrylic, Canvas
People Also Browsed
1980s Contemporary Figurative Prints
Screen
1990s Italian Minimalist Animal Sculptures
Ceramic
1980s Contemporary Portrait Prints
Lithograph
2010s Expressionist Figurative Paintings
Oil, Canvas
Vintage 1930s French Art Deco Paintings
Mid-20th Century Post-Impressionist Figurative Paintings
Oil
Artist Comments
A bold impressionistic painting of a Mandarin duck gliding across a pond with its swirling reflections rippling in the water by artist John Jaster. John utilize...
21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Animal Paintings
Acrylic
2010s American Impressionist Figurative Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
2010s American Impressionist Figurative Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
1960s Abstract Abstract Paintings
Oil, Canvas
Artist Comments
A happy and bright still life featuring a handful of sunflowers arranged in a white ceramic vase by artist John Jaster. The vibrant colors of green and yellow i...
21st Century and Contemporary American Realist Still-life Paintings
Acrylic
1980s Other Art Style Paintings
Canvas, Oil
20th Century Portrait Paintings
Oil
Mid-20th Century English Paintings
Paper
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Nude Paintings
Mixed Media, Acrylic
21st Century and Contemporary American Impressionist Interior Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
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.
Find original abstract paintings, sculptures, prints and other art on 1stDibs.
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Brooklyn Artist Angel Otero’s Abstract Works Tell a Unique Story about Art and Heritage
In his current show at New York's Lehmann Maupin gallery, the Puerto Rican–born talent reveals new paintings with a semiautobiographical aspect.