MOVEMENT: ABSTRACTION (PAINTING)

🏛 OVERALL MOVEMENT DESCRIPTOR: ABSTRACTION (PAINTING)

Use this for "Big Picture" questions about the shift from "copying the world" to "expressing the soul."

  • 👁 NON-REPRESENTATIONAL: Does not attempt to copy the physical world; it is about colors, texture, and process.

  • 👤 VIEWER-CENTRIC: Meaning is not "fixed" by the artist; it is assigned by the viewer based on their own emotions and memories.

  • 🌓 DUALITY: Explores the tension between Visible vs. Invisible and Fullness vs. Emptiness.

  • 🌍 TRAUMA RESPONSE: In Europe, this was a way to capture the speechlessness and silence following the Holocaust.

🎨 SUB-GROUP: MODERNIST PREDECESSORS

Movement Descriptors:

  • Focus: The roots of abstraction before WWII.

  • Style: Spiritualism, early geometry, and breaking away from "objects."

FLASHCARDS:

  • Hilma af Klint: The Ten Largest, No. 3: Visuals: Massive organic, floral-like shapes. Concept: Used "automatic" methods to show the spiritual stages of life.

  • Vasily Kandinsky: Composition IV: Visuals: A chaotic but balanced mix of lines and colors. Concept: Linked painting to music; sought to express the "inner necessity" of the artist.

  • Piet Mondrian: Composition IV (1914): Visuals: Fragmented lines and early abstraction. Concept: Moving toward the total simplification of the grid.

  • Kasimir Malevich: Black Suprematist Square: Visuals: A simple black square on a white ground. Concept: The "Zero Point" of painting; pure feeling over representation.

🌪 SUB-GROUP: ART INFORMEL / ART BRUT / ART AUTRE

Movement Descriptors:

  • Focus: "Raw" art and the physicality of material.

  • Style: Thick paint (Haute Pâte), found objects, and unrefined textures.

FLASHCARDS:

  • Jean Dubuffet: Bright Meteor: Visuals: Extremely thick, muddy texture. Concept: Art Informel; celebrating the "raw" and "unformed" nature of materials.

  • Alberto Burri: Cretto Grande Bianco: Visuals: A massive white surface with deep, natural-looking cracks. Concept: Materiality; using earth-like processes and pressure to create texture.

✒ SUB-GROUP: TACHISME / SPATIALISM / OP ART

Movement Descriptors:

  • Focus: The gesture, the stain, and the perception of the eye.

FLASHCARDS:

  • Hans Hartung: Untitled – T 1955 – 23: Visuals: Aggressive, bundle-like black strokes. Concept: Tachisme; spontaneous gestures representing "dark forces" and post-war alienation.

  • Bridget Riley: Movement in Squares: Visuals: Black and white squares that seem to "sink" or compress. Concept: Op Art; questioning human perception through optical tension.

🌅 SUB-GROUP: COLOR-FIELD / HARD-EDGE PAINTING

Movement Descriptors:

  • Focus: Large areas of color, The Sublime, and optical vibration.

FLASHCARDS:

  • Mark Rothko: Orange and Yellow: Visuals: Luminous, floating rectangles of color. Concept: Color-Field; meant to be a "chapel-like" experience for the viewer.

  • Barnett Newman: Vir Heroicus Sublimis: Visuals: A massive red wall of color with thin vertical lines. Concept: The "Zip"; a vertical line that defines human scale within the infinite.

  • Ad Reinhardt: Abstract Painting (Black): Visuals: A 3x3 grid of "black" that only reveals itself to patient viewers. Concept: "Art-as-Art"; a total rejection of any meaning outside of the painting.

  • Kenneth Noland: Ex Nihilo: Visuals: A concentric "target" shape. Concept: Hard-Edge; exploring how color and shape interact on a perfectly flat surface.

🦶 SUB-GROUP: GUTAI MOVEMENT (JAPAN)

Movement Descriptors:

  • Focus: The body as a tool and the "scream" of the material.

FLASHCARDS:

  • Kazuo Shiraga: Challenging Mud: Visuals: An artist wrestling in a pile of mud. Concept: Gutai; art as a direct, physical bodily act rather than just a picture.