Abstract Art Painting Studios - From Primitive Caves to Modern Lofts

Have you ever tried to remember the first time when you found yourself looking at an abstract art or an abstract painting? This article is a reflection of some of my own personal and subjective viewpoints and realities as an artist about abstract art with certain references to facts that are in agreement with what I believe myself as to the nature, birth, growth and the evolution of the abstract art outside the boundaries of the esoteric terms of the art academia.

To have a basic and fundamental look at the subject, we should first understand what the word abstract means before we could tackle the understanding of "abstract art" itself; and we learn that abstract in this sense and as a verb means to extract or remove and surprisingly as an adjective means not easy to understand; abstruse. As I evolved through my own representational art and became more acquainted with the history of art, I learned that abstract art had its roots in the very early dawn of human history when man began to draw on the walls of his cave. These early abstract arts, abstract drawings and abstract paintings - sometimes embellished with organic dyes - often attempted to capture the essential nature and the quality of the objects rather than the actual appearance of them.

As the art historians and art critics formulated their opinions and ideas into prints, more esoteric terms spun off the subject under "non-objective art," "non-representational art," and "non-figurative art." Centuries long before the birth of abstract expressionism in America, highly figurative arts had existed in the East, namely in the Islamic culture, where calligraphy also as a non-figurative art is taught as a subject starting sometimes as early as in primary schools, as great emphasis is placed upon the pupils' acquiring and developing skills in calligraphy, as the art of handwriting.

In the Western culture, abstract designs are found in many forms. But abstract arts are uniquely distinguished in composition form in relation to decorative art and fine art, where in abstract art, the results of creation, are spontaneous snapshots of the artist's thoughts, emotions, and the introspection by which he creates his work of abstract art.

Abstract Expressionism, as we know it today, was born in America in the mid 20th century following a massive exodus of the European avant- garde artists to New York City, making the city the center of the art world; a title that used to be held by Paris. The arrival of abstract expressionism in New York was the dawn of a new peaceful artistic revolution by which the artist began to rebel overtly against the status quo. On the more textural side, Jackson Pollock began to re-arrange his easel and painted as he pleased, expressing himself by pouring the paint from within unto the canvas, as he felt. Now, for the sake of simplicity, we could categorize art into only representational art and abstract art. Representational art being what we instantly recognize in association to familiar objects, vs. abstract art that requires our thought to perceive the composition of the art and the comparison of our observation with the conclusions we have made in the past, in order to arrive in the immediate instance, where we are. Thus, in our observation of abstract art, the presence or the absence of any emotional responses, brought about as the result of understanding the abstract art, raises the question of, what is truly an abstract art and when does it become successful.

The evolution of art from representational to abstract expressionism required a tremendous level of liberalism and acceptance by those whose help and economic support were instrumental in the survival level of the abstract expressionist painters.

Faced with the sever opposition of the traditionalists who rejected change, the abstract artists began to express their soul, on their new canvases, with their own newly created rules. In the world of art, where art is traded as a luxury and not a necessity and dependant upon the discretionary money of a few, the arrival of the abstract art in general and in particular abstract expressionism threatened the axles on which the art market was pivoted.

Suddenly the conventional means by which the artist had painted changed into an ever-changing process of exploration, creation, experimentation, and more creations; each time giving birth to a new technique. The canvases, paints and the studio tools extended far beyond the boundaries of the artist's studio and into the realm of collage and found objects.

The method of painting is the natural growth out of need. The modern artist is working with space and time and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating. The painting has a life of its own. Every good painter paints what he is."

Another great artist and contemporary painter from the abstract expressionists group is Robert Rauschenberg. The two most prominent style of abstract expressionism, were the action painters engaging use of textures, spattering and drippings of paint throughout, gesturing the mood of the artist, and the color-field painters who expressed their work through the unified fields of color and shapes, while many other painters made use of both styles in their work.
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Precision is not reality, said Henri Mattisse the great artist. In art, everything is precise. That explains the genuineness of art in a broad scale. But art need not carry accuracy. The rules in art depends on an artist's imagination, how he carries his dreams forward, what shape he gives to them, and how he reproduces the idea on to canvas with a brush dipped in paint.

Abstract art is a form of art. As the name explains, the paintings come under it are abstract in nature. Abstract art can be divided basically in to two types.

Figurative abstraction

Emotional abstraction

As the name suggests, figurative representation is the symbolic representation of situations or ideas in a way the artist conceptualizes. The movement of abstract painting emerged in the mid forties in New York. It gradually gained importance in American art. Later artists took up the movement in such a way that abstract painting gained much importance. The artists believed that the job of the artists was to deepen the mystery rather than revealing it. The basic idea behind the idea remains the same. Stephen Wright once commented on abstract painting that he had been doing a lot of abstract painting without paint, brush and canvas, but just by thinking about it.

Abstract expressionism

This is the movement in which the artists rapidly applied paint on canvas without great care for detail, and thus showing emotions and feelings spread on the canvas. The works of abstract painters showed a sense of hastiness and an intervention of life situations like a risk or a chance in applying paint on canvas.

Some abstract artists even took a mystical approach to subject matter, but by defining their objectives and intentions clearly on canvas. The expressive method of painting was considered important.

It concentrated on many ideas. The artists of abstract expressionism valued individuality and spontaneous inventiveness.

The movement of abstract expressionism

Action painting

Color Field painting

Action painting

Action painting is related to surrealism, which is the movement in visual art and literature that became popular in Europe between World Wars I and II. It emphasized on positive expression. Artists like Pollock Jackson with essence form surrealism, implied a technique different from the usual styles of painting that employed the method of dripping paint on to the canvas. This type of painting began to be called as action painting.

Color field painting

This abstract art movement started only in the 1960's. A type of abstract expressionism, color field paintings employed the use of solid color covering the whole canvas in such a way that the lyrical or atmospheric effects of color were seen in a vast canvas. The aesthetics of the color field artists were truly intellectual aesthetic. Abstract expressionism presented within its large framework, a stylistic diversity that was not easily identifiable. Many artists explored various forms of painting in abstract expressionistic painting. Wassily Kandinsky came to be known as the father of abstract painting. The future of abstract painting

With a fabulous history of abstract paintings done on landscape, floral art, people, and just emotions in various ways possible, abstract art grew on a canvas broad, but ambiguous. Artists like Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrain came with newer conceptions and ideas representing the new form of art in an aesthetically well built canvas.

There would definitely be a shift in style from the usually employed techniques like action painting and color field painting. Newer forms will take shape with styles which may take time to establish in the field of painting.

With the invention of more tools in painting, and with newer methods employed, abstract painting will undergo a lot of changes in the coming future. To the great painter there is only one manner of painting - that which he employs in his art. He appreciates his own art and also criticizes. Abstract art has definitely a future, bright, colorful even though vague.

Abstract art is a form of art in which an object or a form is developed in either a simplified way or an exaggerated manner. Abstract art is one of the major forms of art design which attracts a wide variety of people and art lovers. This form of art developed long back with a significant history comprising of various popular artists. Abstract landscape art, 3D abstract art, and fantasy abstract art are the most popular varieties of abstract art.

The three major forms of abstract art are cubism, neoplasticism, and abstract expressionism. Several artists are credited with the foundations of abstract art. Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock are excellent examples of abstract expressionism.

The history of abstract art involves more than 20,000 artists along with their interesting art backgrounds. History states that the abstract form of art design developed in the early 1900s. Neo-plasticism (1920-1940), abstract expressionism (1940-1955), conceptual art, contemporary realism, photorealism, and hyper realism (1960-1975), and neo-expressionism (1970-1990) are some of the major developmental stages in the history of abstract art.

Post-Modernism is a stage which began around 1975, and still considered very famous in abstract art form. Ancient history reveals the truth that abstract art had been used in decorations for textiles and pottery, even in the early twentieth century abstract patterns. In the twentieth century, abstract art type was widely accepted. The first original abstract art form was developed by Wassily Kandinsky in 1910. In 1912, he wrote a theory based on abstract art called On the Spiritual in Art. 

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