WHAT KIND OF ART IS THAT? PART II

Autumn Rhythm, Jackson Pollack, 1950 (non-objective art)

A Short History of Modern Art

          For hundreds of years, the only kind of art that was acceptable in the art world was realistic art, the kind made by folks like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Artists were highly skilled and trained for many years to achieve this level of realism. A painting might take weeks or months to complete! Below is a painting by Pablo Picasso completed when he was only 15 years old, the Mona Lisa by da Vinci, and another very early painting by Henri Matisse ... realism used to be everyone's goal in art: 

Then, in the 1800’s, the CAMERA was invented!

       Artists realized they didn’t need to labor for weeks on end to make a painting look realistic when a realistic picture could be achieved with the click of a button! People began thinking of NEW ways to express their ideas in art. Artists started to experiment with abstraction, simplification, distortion, and even non-representational art. Being innovative, thinking of an art style nobody else had before, was the new goal! 

Many styles began to emerge late in the 19th century and into the 20th century, starting with Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism. From there, non-objective art was invented by artists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian. Later on, Jackson Pollack was the first to innovate "action painting," where he would create enormous canvases of paint drips!  Below are some famous paintings by artists who loved to work in a non-objective style: 

What is non-objective art?

Non-objective art is all about design - it is about colors, shapes, lines, and textures without trying to represent anything from the "real world." It is different from abstract art because it isn't based on anything representational - it isn't supposed to be about flowers, trees, people, animals, or anything we might recognize! Sometimes, artists would try to capture their innermost thoughts in a non-objective painting. They were seeking something spiritual, profound, and deep. Other artists didn't care a hoot about symbolism, they simply wanted to make a beautiful design!

 One artist in particular is famous for his paintings which represented how he felt about jazz music - Piet Mondrian. Here is his painting, Broadway Boogie Woogie, 1942: 

Then, his style began to change as he tried to simplify his subject matter. You can see a similar image of a tree being simplified, until it is nothing more than a series of curving lines and neutral colors! He abstracted the image further and further until the tree became unrecognizable. Mondrian eventually decided he would only paint with squares and the colors red, yellow, blue, black, and white!  

 

Below is a link to the "One Minute History of Painting" we saw today in class, explaining how modern art became so weird ... One Minute History of Art, artopia.org

Here are some pretty terrific 6th grade non-objective designs: