Lives of Famous Abstract Artists
They looked for new ways to express life
Famous abstract artists were rebels in their own way. Refusing to accept “realism” as the only way to depict life, famous abstract artists charted out new methods for using art to portray emotions, feelings and a different way of looking at the world. Abstract art is grouped into major schools like Cubism, Neoplasticism and Expressionism. The famous abstract artists who featured prominently in these schools could very well qualify as rebels.
Pablo Ruiz y Picasso, a prominent figure in the Cubist school of abstract art, started painting when he was ten years old. Born in Spain, he moved to Paris in the early 1900′s and started by painting beggars, alcoholics and prostitutes in the down-and-out parts of the city. He returned to Spain and went through a period of experimentation with different painting styles one of which was the use of geometrical shapes. This style, which he used to paint landscapes, came to be called “cubism” by a critic who described his work as little cubes. A close colleague of Picasso was Georges Braque. The two of them developed a style using complex geometric patterns and flat colors which is now known as “analytical cubism”.
Artworks of Famous Abstract Artists
They changed the way the world looks at art
Movements and developments in modern art are expressed in artworks of the ground-breaking abstract artists. The main forms of abstract art are Cubism, Neoplasticism and Abstract Expressionism. The most well-known artists of these movements are the Cubists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, and Piet Mondrian of Neoplasticism. Representing Abstract Expressionism are Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock.
Cubism was a reaction to Impressionism which placed the emphasis on light and color. In Cubism, geometric shapes are used to depict an object and these shapes are often arranged in unusual ways. The style is influenced by the idea of Paul Cézanne that everything can be shown in the shape of a sphere, cone and cylinder. The paintings “Candlesticks and Playing Cards” by Georges Braque and “The Guitar Player” by Pablo Picasso are two excellent artworks that exemplify Cubism. Some other famous abstract painters were Fernand Leger, Francis Picabia and Roger De La Fresnaye.
Abstract Paintings of Famous Abstract Artists
There’s a fortune in abstract paintings
Abstract paintings command a fortune, now or in the future. If they’re abstract paintings by famous abstract artists like Picasso or Pollock, the price can be astronomical. If they’re by an unknown or up-and-coming abstract artist, you can bet that they’ll be worth a fortune in the future. Abstract paintings are based on the use of lines, colors and usually geometric forms to depict objects differently from the way we see them in, say, photographs. The feelings and emotions of abstract artists are a prominent factor in abstract paintings.
As early as 1872, the painter James McNeill Whistler started to lean towards feelings and emotions rather than a straight depiction of an object in his painting “Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket”. Post Impressionist artists like Van Gogh, Cézanne and Gauguin gave further impetus to the development of abstract art. From there, Fauvism with its multi-colored landscapes and figure paintings stepped over the threshold into modern art with paintings like “View of Notre Dame” and “Yellow Curtain” by Henri Matisse.
Famous Abstract Artists
They have incredible talent to paint and bewitch.
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then abstract artists must have powers to bewitch. Abstract art is one of the most difficult to understand from an ordinary layman’s viewpoint. While most expect art to depict something immediately recognizable like a flower or a face, abstract art depicts an object removed from reality partially or
totally. Many advocates of abstract art point to the fact that ancient art used geometric shapes and linear forms. Whether this is because of a talent deficiency or an advanced understanding of art has not been resolved.
Be that as it may, abstract art is an accepted art form and abstract artists have established themselves prominently in the annals of the art world. Changes in art do not move from one point to another overnight like computer programs. There are movements that gradually lead from one accepted form to a different one until art achieves a radical change. In the case of abstract art, these movements are Romanticism, Impressionism and Expressionism. Paul Cézanne, who started as an Impressionist, who had the idea that all of nature could be depicted in three solid shapes – cube, sphere and cone – led to artists like Pablo Picasso who developed Cubism, one of the three major forms of abstract art. Picasso and Georges Braque are two of the famous abstract artists representing the Cubist school.
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