4 works of ABSTRACT art and their authors

Discover the works of abstract art and their most iconic authors such as Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Robert Delauny and Kazimir Malevich. At unProfesor we detail which of his most representative works are.

He abstract art It is an artistic style characterized by the absence of figurative representation and by proposing a reality different from the natural one. To do this, abstract artists resort to a visual language in which shapes, lines and colors to create and show the viewer a vision independent of the visual references of the reality.

In this lesson from unPROFESOR.com we show you some of the best works of abstract art and their authors so that you better understand what the characteristics of this artistic style are.

Index

1. 4 works of abstract art and their authors
2. Composition in red, yellow and blue by Mondrian
3. No. 1A, 1948 by Jackson Pollock
4. Black Square (1915) by Kazimir Malevich
5. Composition VIII (1923) by Wassily Kandinsky

Between the most iconic abstract works of art stand out:

1. “Composition in red, yellow and blue” by Mondrian.
2. "No. 1A, 1948" by Jackson Pollock.
3. "Black Square" (1915) by Kazimir Malevich.
4. "Composition VIII" (1923) by Wassily Kandinsky.

Some works that we proceed to analyze each of these works in detail so that you can discover all the details that have made them true icons of the abstract style.

At unProfesor we discover the main characteristics of abstract art, as well as the different types of abstract art.

One of the most important works of abstract art is Composition in red, yellow and blue. This work is a iconic example of the neoplasticist style ofPiet Mondrian, which is characterized by the use of straight lines and primary colors.

Mondrian (1872-1944) is one of the great pioneers of abstract art and founder of the De Stijl movement. A movement that was named after a Dutch magazine of aesthetics and art theory (founded in 1917) and that inspired the idea that art must be revolutionary and the magazine constitutes a space to express and disseminate this style: neoplasticism.

A style of aesthetic austerity and characterized by trying make art independent of subjective emotions. Mondrian, in his interest in creating a universal visual language, worked by simplifying shapes to focus on the use of primary colors and geometric shapes. Thus, this Dutch painter went from painting landscapes to moving towards abstraction as a way of expressing universal ideas, reducing everything to the most essential.

This work, “Composition in red, blue and yellow”, is part of a set of non-figurative works created between the years 1921 to 1941. These works were called composition, fusing line and color in their purest form. The black vertical and horizontal lines intersect and give rise to square and rectangular geometric figures. Its interior is colored with basic colors such as red, yellow, blue, white and black. An order that tries to show us the principle of order present in nature, not trying to imitate or be a copy and seeking essential knowledge.

No. 1A, 1948 of Jackson Pollock It is another of the main works of abstract art. This Pollock oil painting is exhibited at the MoMa in New York and is a good example of the abstract expressionism, the first all-American painting style and an exaltation of the basic elements of painting. Thus, in this work he shows us one of the Pollock's most notable techniques: dripping or drip, technique that consisted of throwing and dripping paint on the canvas placed on the ground.

In Number 1all the basic elements of painting are exalted, without the painting having meaning since what Pollock is looking for is a two-dimensional vision. An art that wants to create something new, without memory or references, fleeing from the traumas generated by world conflicts.

black square is another of the most iconic works of the history of art of the 20th century. It is exhibited in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and we are looking at a work belonging to the suprematism, avant-garde artistic movement that uses abstract shapes and basic geometric figures.

In this case. Malevich chooses a square and paints it black to offer us what the title of the painting indicates: “Black painting on a white background”, although He also titled it “Two black men fighting in a cave”, a joke that the artist left inscribed on the canvas and that follows the line marked by another painter, Alphonse Allais (1854-1905), and his critical works. He was also influenced by authors such as Tapies, Stella, Reinhart or Newman.

Malevich is another of the pioneers of abstract art and, beyond the jokes, this work is a total abstraction and one of the most iconic works of the 20th century and also one of the simplest. This work is the first suprematist pictorial manifestation due to its maximum simplicity. It is about art for art's sake, showing only the rotundity of geometry and the strength of color, thus taking to the extreme what cubism had begun.

We conclude this lesson on works of abstract art and their authors we have to talk about kandisky. This artist leaves us another of the most iconic works and abstract paintings of the 20th century, “Composition 8”. A work that is characterized by being pure geometry, in addition to the use of color, almost flat backgrounds and non-representative shapes.

The background is almost flat and uses soft colors to provide a certain sensation of depth. In the composition we can find concentric circles that are distributed over the entire surface of the painting, in addition to triangles and squares linked in different ways and forming both regular and irregular.

Straight lines, tangent arcs and a wave, among other figures, are also distinguished. Some figures are superimposed on others and change colors as if they were all transparent and the colors were mixing. A whole series of figures that look like musical notes and that are in line with the parallelisms that Kandisky established between painting and music.

If you want to read more articles similar to Works of abstract art and their authors, we recommend that you enter our category of History.

• CIRLOT, Juan-Eduardo, et al. Mondrian and neoplasticism. Architecture notebooks, 1963, p. 2-4.
• GARCIA, Luis López. Kandisky: abstract art as a way of apprehension of reality by 20th century society. Bulletin of the Camón Aznar Museum and Institute, 1997, no 70, p. 205-260.
• ROQUE, Georges. The rhythm and beginnings of abstract art. Magazine of the University of Mexico, 2019, vol. 4, p. 33-42.