Abstraction How did we get here I dont

Abstraction: How did we get here? I don’t recognize anything! http: //www. moma. org/explore/multimedia/audios/3/49

As you look at these works of art, ask yourself: Is the artist using abstraction to… • explore the tension created between different shapes • deliberately deconstruct the act of seeing • construct a landscape of color (abstract expressionism—see Rothko and Frankenthaler) • dissolve linear perspective • create a “pure” image that focuses only on shape and color • create a collection of potent symbols • focus the viewer on the act of creation (gesturalist—see J. Pollack) Is this abstract work referential? Does the artist use the ostensible subject as a jumping off point which allows him to… • focus the viewer on the color and pattern • use color to evoke a mood or emotion • evoke the dynamism of modern age

terms: referential decontextualized dynamism (energy and power and speed) gesturalist assemblage (when hoarders become artists!) ready-made

Paul Cezanne Mont Sainte-Victoire c. 1886

Vasily Kandinsky Der Blaue Reiter 1903 One of the founders of Der Blaue Reiter. Kandinsky hoped to awaken spirituality and to inaugurate “a great spiritual epoch” through the sheer force of color. He is considered the very first artist to paint completely abstract works of art.

Andre Derain Mountains at Collioure 1905 Stokstad writes that “Derain’s assertive colors, which he likened to ‘sticks of dynamite, ’ do not record what he actually saw in the landscape but rather generate their own purely artistic energy” (1063). Again, the landscape—the subject—is used as an occasion for exploring the artist’s ideas about color