The emergence of Abstract Art:

Abstractionism as a movement arose at the beginning of the 20th century. simultaneously in several European countries. The recognized founders and inspirers of this movement are the artists Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, Frantisek Kupka and Robert Delaunay, who outlined the main principles of Abstract Art in their theoretical works and policy statements. Differing in goals and objectives, their teachings were united in one thing: Abstractionism as the highest stage of development fine arts creates forms that are unique to art. “Freed” from copying reality, it turns into a means of transmitting various figurative images the incomprehensible spiritual principle of the universe, eternal “spiritual essences”, “cosmic forces”.

As an artistic phenomenon, Abstractionism had a huge influence on the formation and development of modern architectural style, design, industrial, applied and decorative arts.

Features of Abstract Art:

Abstractionism (from the Latin Abstractus - abstract) is one of the main artistic directions in the art of the 20th century, in which the structure of the work is based exclusively on formal elements - line, color spot, abstract configuration. Works of Abstract Art are detached from the forms of life itself: non-objective compositions embody the subjective impressions and fantasies of the artist, the stream of his consciousness; they give rise to free associations, movement of thought and emotional empathy.

Since the advent of Abstract Art, two main lines have emerged in it:

• First – geometric, or logical abstraction, creating space by combining geometric shapes, colored planes, straight and broken lines. It is embodied in the Suprematism of K. Malevich, the neoplasticism of P. Mondrian, the orphism of R. Delaunay, in the work of masters of post-painterly abstraction and op art;
• The second is lyrical-emotional abstraction, in which compositions are organized from freely flowing forms and rhythms, is represented by the work of V. Kandinsky, the works of masters of abstract expressionism, tachisme, and informal art.

Masters of Abstract Art:

Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Frantisek Kupka, Paul Klee, Piet Mondrian, Theo Van Doesburg, Robber Delaunay, Mikhail Larionov, Lyubov Popova, Jackson Pollock, Josef Albers and others.

Paintings by artists:

Abstraction in art!

Abstractionism!

Abstractionism- this is a direction in painting, which is highlighted in a special style.

Abstract painting, abstract art or abstract genre, implies a refusal to depict real things and forms.

Abstractionism is aimed at evoking certain emotions and associations in a person. For these purposes, paintings in an abstract style try to express the harmony of color, shapes, lines, spots, and so on. All forms and color combinations, which are located in the perimeter of the image, have an idea, their own expression and semantic load. No matter how it may seem to the viewer, looking at a picture where there is nothing except lines and blots, everything in abstraction is subject to certain rules of expression, the so-called “abstract composition”.

Abstraction in art!

Abstractionism, as a movement in painting, arose at the beginning of the 20th century simultaneously in several European countries.

It is believed that abstract painting was invented and developed by the great Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky.

The recognized founders and inspirers of abstractionism are the artists Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, Frantisek Kupka and Robert Delaunay, who in their theoretical works shaped approaches to the definition of “Abstractionism”. Differing in goals and objectives, their research was united in one thing: Abstractionism, as the highest stage of development of visual creativity, creates forms inherent only to art. The artist, “freed” from copying reality, thinks in special pictorial images of the incomprehensible spiritual principle of the universe, eternal “spiritual essences”, “cosmic forces”.

Abstract painting, which literally blew up the art world, became a symbol of the beginning new era in painting. This era means a complete transition from frameworks and restrictions to complete freedom of expression. The artist is no longer bound by anything, he can paint not only people, everyday and genre scenes, but even thoughts, emotions, sensations and use any form of expression for this.

Today, abstraction in art is so wide and varied that it itself is divided into many types, styles and genres. Each artist or group of artists tries to create something of their own, something special that would in the best possible way could reach a person’s feelings and sensations. Achieving this without using recognizable figures and objects is very difficult. For this reason, abstract paintings that really evoke special sensations and make one marvel at the beauty and expressiveness of an abstract composition, deserve great respect, and the artist himself is considered a real genius of painting.

Abstract painting!

Since the advent of Abstract Art, two main lines have emerged in it.

The first is geometric or logical abstraction, creating space by combining geometric shapes, colored planes, straight and broken lines. It is embodied in the Suprematism of K. Malevich, the neoplasticism of P. Mondrian, the orphism of R. Delaunay, in the work of masters of post-painterly abstraction and op art.

The second is lyrical-emotional abstraction, in which compositions are organized from freely flowing forms and rhythms, represented by the work of V. Kandinsky, the works of masters of abstract expressionism, tachisme, and informal art.

Abstract painting!

Abstract art, as painting of a special personal expression, was initially in the underground for a long time. Abstract art, like many other genres in the history of painting, was ridiculed and even condemned and censored as art without any meaning. However, over time, the position of abstraction has changed and now it exists on a par with all other forms of art.

As an artistic phenomenon, Abstractionism had a huge influence on the formation and development of modern architectural style, design, industrial, applied and decorative arts.

Recognized masters of Abstract Art: Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Frantisek Kupka. Paul Klee, Piet Mondrian, Theo Van Doesburg, Robber Delaunay, Mikhail Larionov, Lyubov Popova, Jackson Pollock, Josef Albers.

Modern abstractionism in painting!

In modern fine art, abstractionism has become important language deep emotional communication between artist and viewer.

In modern abstractionism, new interesting directions are emerging that use, for example, special images of various color forms. Thus, in the works of Andrei Krasulin, Valery Orlov, Leonid Pelikh, the space of white - the highest tension of color - is generally filled with endless variable possibilities, allowing the use of both metaphysical ideas about the spiritual and the optical laws of light reflection.

In modern abstractionism, space begins to play new roles and forms different semantic loads. For example, there are spaces of signs and symbols that arise from the depths of archaic consciousness.

In modern abstractionism, the plot direction is also developing. In this case, while maintaining non-objectivity, the abstract image is constructed in such a way that it evokes specific associations - different levels abstraction.

Modern abstractionism is infinite in its boundaries: from the objective situation to the philosophical level of figurative abstract categories. On the other hand, in modern abstract painting, the image may look like a painting of someone fantasy world- for example, abstract surrealism.

Other articles in this section:

• Language communication systems! Languages ​​as the main factor in the system of knowledge development!
• Traditions. What is tradition? Tradition in the dialectical development of society.
• Space and time. Laws of space. Open space. Movement. Space of worlds.
• Evolution and coevolution. Evolution and co-evolution in the system of modern knowledge. Principles of evolution and coevolution. Biological evolution and coevolution of living nature.
• Synergetics and laws of nature. Synergetics as a science. Synergetics as a scientific approach and method. The universal theory of evolution is synergetics.
• It is possible or it is not! A kaleidoscope of events and actions through the prism is impossible and possible!
• World of religion! Religion as a form of human consciousness in awareness of the surrounding world!
• Art - Art! Art is a skill that can inspire admiration!
• Realism! Realism in art! Realistic art!
• Unofficial art! Unofficial art of the USSR!
• Thrash - Thrash! Trash in art! Trash in creativity! Trash in literature! Cinema trash! Cybertrash! Thrash metal! Teletrash!
• Painting! Painting is art! Painting is the art of an artist! Canons of painting. Masters of painting.
• Vernissage - “vernissage” - the grand opening of an art exhibition!
• Metaphorical realism in painting. The concept of “metaphorical realism” in painting.
• The cost of paintings by contemporary artists. How to buy a painting?

Abstractionism, which is from lat. abstractio means abstraction, removal is non-figurative, non-objective art. Peculiar shape visual arts, which does not aim to imitate or display visually perceived reality. Abstract sculpture, painting and graphics exclude association with a recognizable object.

Time of occurrence of the first abstract painting, and the origins of abstract painting have not been established. We can only say with certainty that between 1910 and 1915. Many European artists tried non-figurative and non-figurative compositions (in sculpture, drawing and painting).

These are: M.F. Larionov, F. Kupka, R. Delaunay, P. Klee, F. Picabia, U. Bocioni, F. Mark, F. Marinetti, A. G. Yavlensky and many others.

The most famous and original are P. Mondrian, V. V. Kandinsky and K. S. Malevich.

Composition in gray, pink, P. Modrian Composition No. 217 Gray oval, V. V. Kandinsky I go into space, K. S. Malevich

Kandinsky is usually called the “inventor” of abstraction, thereby implying his watercolors of 1910–1912, as well as his theoretical works, which objectively testify to the self-sufficiency of art and indicate his ability to create some new reality. Kandinsky, both in theory and in practice, was the more consistent and decisive of those who at that time approached the line that separates figurativeness from abstraction. The question of who was the first to cross this line remained unclear. However, it is not important, since in the first years of the twentieth century the newest art movements in Europe came close to this border, and everything demonstrated that it would be overturned.

Abstract artists

Despite prevailing beliefs, abstraction was not a stylistic category. This peculiar form visual arts splits into several currents. Lyrical abstraction, geometric abstraction, analytical abstraction, gestural abstraction and more particular movements, for example, aranformel, suprematism, nuageism and so on.

Abstract Art Styles are developed from the same style-forming particles as figurative styles. This confirms the fact that monochrome painting - a canvas that is painted over with one tone - is in the same intermediate relationship to style as a fully naturalistic figurative image. Abstract painting is a special type of visual creativity, whose functions are compared to the functions of music in audio space.

The growing change in aesthetic attitudes in art begins with revolutionary reforms in science, culture and technology of the 20th century. Already in the first half of the 19th century, new trends in art began to be noticeable. During that period, in European painting one can simultaneously see a growing tendency towards conventionality (F. Goya, E. Delacroix, C. Corot) and the improvement of naturalistic technique (T. Chasserio, J.-L. David, J. Ingres). The first is especially emphasized in English painting - in R. O. Bonington, as well as W. Turner. His paintings - “The Sun Rising in the Fog...” (1806), “Musical Evening” (1829–1839) and some other works convey the most daring generalizations that border on abstraction.

Let's focus on the form, as well as on the plot, one of its latest works – "Rain, steam, speed", depicting a steam locomotive rushing through fog and a veil of rain. This picture written in 1848 - capital punishment conventions in the art of the first half of the 19th century V.

Starting from the middle of the 19th century, sculpture and graphics turned to what is incomprehensible to direct images. Research on new visual arts, typing methods, universal symbols, increased expression, compressed plastic formulas. On the one hand, this is addressed to the image of a person’s inner world, his emotional psychological states, on the other hand, on the development of a vision of the objective world.

One of the main trends in avant-garde art. The main principle of abstract art is the refusal to imitate visible reality and operate with its elements in the process of creating a work. Instead of the realities of the surrounding world, the object of art becomes a toolkit artistic creativity– color, line, shape. The plot is replaced by a plastic idea. The role of the associative principle in the artistic process increases many times over, and it also becomes possible to express the feelings and moods of the creator in abstract images, cleared of the outer shell, which are capable of concentrating the spiritual principle of phenomena and being its carriers (theoretical works of V.V. Kandinsky).

Random elements of abstraction can be identified in world art throughout its entire development, starting with rock paintings. But the origin of this style should be sought in the painting of the Impressionists, who tried to decompose color into individual elements. Fauvism consciously developed this tendency, “revealing” color, emphasizing its independence and making it the object of the image. Of the Fauvists, Franz Marc and Henri Matisse came closest to abstraction (his words are symptomatic: “all art is abstract”), and the French Cubists (especially Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger) and the Italian Futurists (Giacomo Balla and Gino Severini) also moved along this path. . But none of them was able or willing to overcome the figurative border. “We admit, however, that some reminder existing forms should not be expelled completely, at least at the present time” (A. Glaze, J. Metzinger. About Cubism. St. Petersburg, 1913. P. 14).

The first abstract works appeared in the late 1900s – early 1910s in Kandinsky’s work while working on the text “On the Spiritual in Art,” and his first abstract painting is considered to be his “Painting with a Circle” (1911. NMG). His reasoning dates back to this time: “<...>only that form is correct which<...>materializes the content accordingly. All sorts of side considerations, and among them the correspondence of the form to the so-called “nature”, i.e. external nature, are insignificant and harmful, since they distract from the only task of the form - the embodiment of content. Form is the material expression of abstract content” (Content and form. 1910 // Kandinsky 2001. T. 1. P.84).

On early stage abstract art in the person of Kandinsky absolutized color. In the study of color, practical and theoretical, Kandinsky developed the theory of color of Johann Wolfgang Goethe and laid the foundations for the theory of color in painting (among Russian artists, M.V. Matyushin, G.G. Klutsis, I.V. Klyun and others studied color theory) .

In Russia in 1912–1915, abstract painting systems of Rayonism (M.F. Larionov, 1912) and Suprematism (K.S. Malevich, 1915) were created, which largely determined the further evolution of abstract art. A rapprochement with abstract art can be found in cubo-futurism and alogism. A breakthrough to abstraction was the painting by N.S. Goncharova “Emptiness” (1914. Tretyakov Gallery), but this topic was not found further development in the artist's work. Another unrealized aspect of Russian abstraction is the color painting of O.V. Rozanova (see: Non-objective art).

During the same years, the Czech Frantisek Kupka, the French Robert Delaunay and Jacques Villon, the Dutchman Piet Mondrian, and the Americans Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Morgan Russell followed their own paths to pictorial abstraction in these same years. The first abstract spatial structures were counter-reliefs by V.E. Tatlin (1914).

The rejection of isomorphism and an appeal to the spiritual principle gave reason to associate abstract art with theosophy, anthroposophy and even the occult. But the artists themselves did not express such ideas in the first stages of the development of abstract art.

After World War I abstract painting gradually gaining dominant positions in Europe and becoming a universal artistic ideology. This is a powerful artistic movement, which in its aspirations goes far beyond the scope of pictorial and plastic tasks and demonstrates the ability to create aesthetic and philosophical systems and solve social problems (for example, Malevich’s “Suprematist city” based on the principles of life-building). In the 1920s, based on his ideology, such research institutes, like Bauhaus or Ginkhuk. Constructivism also grew from abstraction.

The Russian version of abstraction is called non-objective art.

Many principles and techniques of abstract art, which became classics in the twentieth century, are widely used in design, theatrical and decorative arts, cinema, television and computer graphics.

The concept of abstract art has changed over time. Until the 1910s, this term was used in relation to painting, where forms were depicted in a generalized and simplified manner, i.e. "abstract" versus a more detailed or naturalistic depiction. In this sense the term was mainly applied to decorative arts or to compositions with flattened forms.

But since the 1910s, “abstract” has been used to describe works where a form or composition is depicted from such an angle that the original subject changes almost beyond recognition. Most often, this term denotes a style of art that is based solely on the arrangement of visual elements - shape, color, structure, while it is not at all necessary that they have an initiating image in the material world.

The concept of meaning in abstract art (in both its meanings - early and later) - complex issue, which is constantly discussed. Abstract forms can also refer to non-visual phenomena such as love, speed or the laws of physics, associating with a derivative entity (“essentialism”), with the imaginary or other way of separating from the detailed, detailed and inessential, random. Despite the absence of a representative subject, an abstract work can accumulate enormous expression, and semantically rich elements such as rhythm, repetition and color symbolism indicate involvement in specific ideas or events outside the image itself.

Literature:

• M.Seuphor. L'Art abstrait, ses origins, ses premiers maîtres. Paris, 1949;
• M.Brion. L'Art abstract. Paris, 1956; D.Vallier. L'Art abstract. Paris, 1967;
• R.Capon. Introducing Abstract Painting. London, 1973;
• C.Blok. Geschichte der abstrakten Kunst. 1900–1960. Köln, 1975;
• M. Schapiro. Nature of Abstract Art (1937) // M. Schapiro. Modern Art. Selected Papers. New York, 1978;
• Towards a New Art: Essays on the Background to Abstract Painting 1910–1920. Ed. M. Compton. London, 1980;
• The Spiritual in Art. Abstract Painting 1890–1985. Los Angeles County Museum of Arts. 1986/1987;
• Text by M. Tuchman; B. Altshuler. The Avant-Garde in Exhibition. New Art in the 20th Century. New York, 1994;
• Abstraction in Russia. XX century. T. 1–2. State Russian Museum [Catalog] St. Petersburg, 2001;
• Pointlessness and abstraction. Sat. articles. Rep. ed. G.F.Kovalenko. M., 2011;

Text: Ksyusha Petrova

THIS WEEK AT THE JEWISH MUSEUM AND TOLERANCE CENTER The exhibition “Abstraction and Image” by Gerhard Richter ends - the first personal exhibition in Russia of one of the most influential and expensive contemporary artists. While at the recently extended exhibition of Raphael and Caravaggio and the Georgian avant-garde at the Pushkin Museum. There are queues for A.S. Pushkin; you can see Richter in the comfortable company of a couple of dozen visitors. This paradox is due not only to the fact that the Jewish Museum is much inferior in popularity to Pushkin or the Hermitage, but also to the fact that many are still skeptical about abstract art.

Even those who are familiar with Sovriska and understand well the significance of the “Black Square” for world culture are put off by the “elitism” and “inaccessibility” of abstraction. We mock the works of fashionable artists, are amazed at the auction records and fear that behind the facade of art criticism terms there will be emptiness - after all, the artistic merits of works that resemble children's scribbles sometimes raise doubts among professionals. In fact, the aura of “inaccessibility” of abstract art is easy to dispel - in this instruction we tried to explain why abstraction is called “Buddhist television” and from which side to approach it.

Gerhard Richter. November 1/54. 2012

Don't try to find out
what the artist wanted to say

In the halls where Renaissance paintings hang, even a not very prepared viewer can find his way: at least he can easily name what is depicted in the painting - people, fruits or the sea, what emotions the characters experience, whether there is a plot in this work, whether they are familiar him participants in the events. In front of the paintings of Rothko, Pollock or Malevich, we do not feel so confident - there is no object on them that we can catch our eye on and speculate about it in order, like in school, to find out “what the author wanted to say.” This is the main difference between abstract, or non-objective, painting and the more familiar figurative painting: the abstract artist does not strive to depict the world, he does not set himself such a task.

If you look closely at the last two centuries of the history of Western art, it becomes clear that the rejection of the subject in painting is not the whim of a handful of nonconformists, but a natural stage of development. In the 19th century, photography appeared, and artists were freed from the obligation to depict the world as it is: portraits of relatives and beloved dogs began to be made in a photo studio - it turned out faster and cheaper than ordering an oil painting from a master. With the invention of photography, the need to meticulously copy what we see in order to store it in memory has disappeared.

← Jackson Pollock.
Shorthand figure. 1942

By the mid-19th century, some began to suspect that realist art was a trap. Artists perfectly mastered the laws of perspective and composition, learned to depict people and animals with extraordinary accuracy, acquired suitable materials, but the result looked less and less convincing. The world began to change rapidly, cities became larger, industrialization began - against this background, realistic images of fields, battle scenes and nude models seemed outdated, divorced from the complex experiences of modern man.

The Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, Fauvists and Cubists are artists who were not afraid to re-question what is important in art: each of these movements drew on the experiences of the previous generation, experimenting with color and form. As a result, some artists came to the conclusion that contact between the author and the viewer occurs not through projections of reality, but through lines, spots and strokes of paint - so art got rid of the need to depict anything, inviting the viewer to feel the unclouded joy of interacting with color , shape, lines and texture. All this was perfectly combined with new philosophical and religious teachings - in particular, theosophy, and the locomotives of the Russian avant-garde, Wassily Kandinsky and Kazimir Malevich, developed their own philosophical systems in which the theory of art is connected with the principles of an ideal society.

In any unclear situation, use formal analysis

Here's a nightmare every amateur can find himself in contemporary art: imagine that you are standing in front of a delightful painting by Agnes Martin, as it is written in the guidebook, and you feel absolutely nothing. Nothing but irritation and slight sadness - not because the picture gives you such feelings, but because you don’t understand at all what is drawn here and where you need to look (you’re not even sure that the curators hung the work the right way). In such a situation, formal analysis comes to the rescue, with which it is worth starting to get acquainted with any work of art. Exhale and try to answer a few children's questions: what do I see in front of me - a painting or a sculpture, graphics or painting? With what materials and when was it created? How can you describe these shapes and lines? How do they interact? Are they moving or static? Is there depth here - which elements of the image are in the foreground and which are in the background?

← Barnett Newman. Untitled. 1945

The next stage is also quite simple: listen to yourself and try to determine what emotions what you see evokes in you. Are these red triangles funny or alarming? Do I feel calm or does the picture weigh on me? Test question: Do I try to figure out what it looks like, or do I let my mind interact freely with color and shape?

Remember that it is not only the picture that is important, but also the frame - or lack thereof. In the case of the same Newman, Mondrian or the “Amazon of the avant-garde” Olga Rozanova, the rejection of the frame is a conscious choice of the artist, which invites you to discard old ideas about art and mentally expand its boundaries, literally go beyond.

To feel more confident, you can remember a simple classification of abstract works: they are usually divided into geometric (Piet Mondrian, Ellsworth Kelly, Theo van Doesburg) and lyrical (Helen Frankenthaler, Gerhard Richter, Wassily Kandinsky).

Helen Frankenthaler. Orange Hoop. 1965

Helen Frankenthaler. Solarium. 1964

Don't judge "drawing ability"

“My child/cat/monkey can do no worse” is a phrase that is said every day in every museum of modern art (perhaps they thought of installing a special counter somewhere). The easy way to answer such a claim is to snort and roll your eyes, complaining about the spiritual poverty of those around you; a difficult and more productive way is to take the question seriously and try to explain why the skill of abstractionists should be assessed differently. The great semiologist Roland Barthes wrote a heartfelt essay about the seeming “childishness” of Cy Twombly’s scribbles, and our contemporary Susie Hodge devoted an entire book to this topic.

Many abstract artists have a classical education and excellent academic drawing skills - that is, they are able to draw a nice vase of flowers, a sunset on the sea or a portrait, but for some reason they don’t want to. They choose a visual experience that is not burdened by objectivity: the artists seem to make the task easier for the viewer, preventing him from being distracted by the objects depicted in the picture, and helping him to immediately immerse himself in an emotional experience.

← Cy Twombly. Untitled. 1954

In 2011, researchers decided to check whether paintings in the genre of abstract expressionism (this direction of abstract art raises the most questions) are indistinguishable from the drawings of small children, as well as the art of chimpanzees and elephants. The subjects were asked to look at pairs of pictures and determine which of them were made by professional artists - in 60–70% of cases, respondents chose “real” works of art. The advantage is small, but statistically significant - apparently, in the works of abstractionists there really is something that distinguishes them from the drawings of a smart chimpanzee. Another new study has shown that children themselves can distinguish the works of abstract artists from children's drawings. To test your artistic flair, you can take a similar quiz on BuzzFeed.

Remember that all art is abstract

If your brain is ready for a little overload, consider the fact that all art is inherently abstract. Figurative painting, be it the still life “Boy with a Pipe” by Picasso or “The Last Day of Pompeii” by Bryullov, is a projection of a three-dimensional world onto a flat canvas, an imitation of “reality” that we perceive through vision. There is also no need to talk about the objectivity of our perception - after all, the capabilities of human vision, hearing and other senses are very limited, and we cannot evaluate them on our own.

Marble David is not a living guy, but a piece of stone that Michelangelo gave a shape that reminds us of a man (and we get the idea of ​​​​what men look like from our life experience). If you get very close to Gioconda, you will still think that you see her delicate, almost living skin, a transparent veil and fog in the distance - but this is essentially an abstraction, it’s just that Leonardo da Vinci very painstakingly and for a long time applied layers of paint on top of each other to create a very subtle illusion. The unmasking trick works more clearly with the Fauvists and Pointillists: if you approach a Pissarro painting, you will see not Montmartre Boulevard and the sunset at Eragny, but many colorful small brushstrokes. Dedicated to the illusory essence of art famous painting Rene Magritte “The Treachery of Images”: of course, “this is not a pipe” - these are just strokes of paint well placed on the canvas.

← Helen Frankenthaler.
Nepenthe. 1972

The Impressionists, whose competence we do not doubt today, were the abstractionists of their time: Monet, Degas, Renoir and their friends were accused of abandoning realistic depiction in favor of conveying sensations. “Careless” strokes, visible to the naked eye, “strange” composition and other progressive techniques seemed blasphemous to the public of that time. IN late XIX centuries, impressionists were seriously accused of “inability to draw,” vulgarity and cynicism.

The organizers of the Paris Salon had to hang Manet's Olympia almost from the ceiling - there were too many people who wanted to spit on it or pierce the canvas with an umbrella. Is this situation very different from the 1987 incident at Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum, when a man attacked abstract artist Barnett Newman's Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue III with a knife?

Mark Rothko. Untitled. 1944-1946

Don't neglect context

The best way to experience a piece of abstract art is to stand in front of it and look and look and look. Some works can plunge the viewer into deep existential feelings or ecstatic trance - most often this happens with paintings by Mark Rothko and objects by Anish Kapoor, but works can also have a similar effect unknown artists. Although emotional connection is most important, avoiding reading labels and getting to know historical context it’s not worth it: the title will not help you understand the “meaning” of the work, but it may give you some interesting thoughts. Even dry titles like “Composition No. 2” and “Object No. 7” tell us something: by giving his work such a name, the author encourages us to abandon the search for “subtext” or “symbolism” and focus on spiritual experience.

← Yuri Zlotnikov. Composition No. 22. 1979

The history of the creation of the work is also important: most likely, if you find out when and under what circumstances the work was created, you will see something new in it. After reading the biography of the artist, carefully prepared for you by the museum curators, ask yourself what significance this work could have had in the country and at the time when its author worked: the same “Black Square” makes a completely different impression if you know something about philosophical movements and art of the early 20th century. One more, less famous example- series “Signal Systems” by the pioneer of Russian post-war abstraction Yuri Zlotnikov. Today, colored circles on a white canvas do not seem revolutionary - but in the 1950s, when official art looked something like this, Zlotnikov’s abstractions were a real breakthrough.

Slow down

It is always better to pay attention to a few works that catch your eye than to gallop through the museum, trying to take in the immensity. Professor Jennifer Roberts from Harvard forces her students to look at one painting for three hours - of course, no one demands such stamina from you, but thirty seconds is clearly not enough for a Kandinsky painting. In his manifesto - a declaration of love for abstraction, the famous art critic Jerry Saltz calls Rothko's hypnotic paintings "Buddhist television" - it is implied that you can gaze at them endlessly.

Repeat this at home

The best way to test the seditious thought “I can draw just as well,” which sometimes arises among professional art critics, is to conduct an experiment at home. It will also be interesting in the opposite situation - if you are afraid to take up paints due to “inability to draw” or “lack of ability.” It is not for nothing that abstract techniques are used most often in art therapy: they help to express complex sensations for which it is difficult to find words. For many artists suffering from internal contradictions and its own incompatibility with outside world, abstraction has become almost the only way reconciliation with reality (except for drugs and alcohol, of course).

Abstract works can be created using any art materials- from watercolor to oak bark, so you are sure to find a technique that suits your liking and budget. Perhaps you shouldn’t start right away with dripping" - the analysis of Mondrian's painting "Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow" for the little ones is not a shame for adults to read. Jewish Museum, ART4