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ABSTRACTIONISM

BY: LARUEN PROCHAZKA, MACKENZIE ROGERS, AND JILLIAN SOMMERVILLE

21918 White on White – Kasmir Malevich

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THE WORLD OF THE EARLY 1920’s

• World War I has ended, rebuilding cities• Russian Revolution ended, Russian communism

takes over• Stalin in power, social realism is the only art allowed• Nazi party forming• Color theory, light theory, cosmology, morphology,

quantum mechanics, math and physics evolve• Development of photograph, methods of

reproduction

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WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE THINK ABOUT ABSTRACTIONISM?

You just take an object and morph it using shapes

There’s no meaning to the shapes

Making fun of the object portrayed

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WHAT’S IT REALLY ABOUT?

• Non-objective, No Imitation• Geometric shapes, no objects from observed world• Forms and colors exist for their own expressive

sake, symbols• Dematerialization of the object• Clarity, certainty, order• Peering deeper into the mind, theosophy• Scientific, universal language of senses in a

growing, chaotic world

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KANDINSKY• Accredited with first abstract work• Art is like music (inspired, structured, feeling, calculated,

rhythm)• Abstract forms have spiritual basis• Color and shape are symbolic, ex: white=great silence,

circle=wholeness• “Inner necessity”- artist’s intuitive, emotional response to the

world• His work not supposed to be observed but felt slowly• Teacher at the Bauhaus in Germany• Express inner life of humans and their most intimate emotions• Viewer’s eye moves freely without limits imposed by artist

71913 Composition VII – Wassily Kandinsky

81923 Composition VIII – Wassilly Kandinsky

91926 Several Circles – Wassily Kandinsky

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ARE YOU STILL AWAKE?

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MALEVICH

• Believed abandoning need to depict external world would break into deeper level of meaning

• “Suprematism”- visual object is meaningless, feeling holds significance

• Abandoned painting for a while to sketch suprematist cities

• Imprisoned by Stalin for free-thinking art• Lover of math, tried to incorporate passionate

emotion• Believed non-objective would overcome conflict

between man v. nature, mind v. matter

121915 Black Square – Kasmir Malevich

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1915 Suprematism – Kasmir Malevich

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1916-17 Suprematist Painting – Kasmir Malevich

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MONDRIAN

• Believed art of clarity and balance would lead to a society governed by universal visual harmony

• Disciplined in life and art• Love of jazz• Simplified, mathematic structure• “Plastic reality”- reality was presence of the painting

itself, not imitated nature• No symbolic meaning to colors• No communication with Russia because of war• Only through non-objective could humans approach

the divine, the universal

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1917 Composition in Color A – Piet Mondrian

171921 Composition with Red, Blue, Black, Yellow, and Gray– Piet Mondrian

181933 Lozenge Composition with Four Yellow Lines – Piet Mondrian

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CONTRIBUTIONS TO ART

• Cities are based on abstract forms• The painting was about the feeling you get

looking at it, not the visual aspect of the object• Light, vital energy, feelings, and emotions

coupled with math and science• Simplified geometric figures could reach deeper

into the soul• Impact on industrial and advertisement art

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ABSTRACTIONISM ROCKS!

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THE END