 The World of Abstract
Abstract by Country
Abstract Masters
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Braque, Picasso and Gris came very close to abstraction in 1914, as can be seen by examining some stories about the art of this period. In his next Thurs Vision in Motion Moholy-Nagy's side a collage by Braque in 1914 and a composition of Malevich 1921, showing a striking resemblance between the two works. It must have been accidental, as Braque never intended to go into abstraction, while Malevich was not used for figuration after 1913. For example, when Braque said, "Let's forget things, and consider only the relations" it was certainly far from realizing how important it was to Mondrian. Words often transcend thought Picasso was not once a remark on Juan Gris that the disciple often see things more clearly than his master?
Light gave a lot more thought and time to the claims of abstract art integral, and for a time, between 1913 and 1919 he appears to have been strongly tempted by it. His admirable series of contrasting forms of 1913-1914 is not abstract art in the strict sense, but part of him an ace. I have no idea who or what deviated Light, this would have been his normal development. By 1924, he interrupted his usual style of painting to produce compositions that were entirely abstract murals and, indeed, very in tune with the neoplasticism. Two of them were given prominent places in the Cercle et Carré exhibition in 1930.
During the twenties, when it was conducted by Leger and Ozenfant, the Modern Academy has been a lot of young abstract artists. Thank you to their youth, they were quick to push Cubism to its logical conclusions, and I know they were not discouraged by Léger in their pursuit of abstract art. He wrote a few years later, "Of all the different directions in which the arts have developed over the past 25 years, abstract art is the most important and most interesting. This is not a phenomenon simple experience, but an art its own intrinsic value. It has been proven and also responds to a request, since the collectors are so enthusiastic about it. There is a trend resulting from life.
Perhaps future generations will class this art form as an artificial paradise, but I think not. The abstract program is governed by that desire for perfection and for complete freedom that transforms men into saints, heroes or fools. This is an extreme position in which few artists or their supporters can thrive. The idealism of the same abstract program is its greatest danger. Modern life with all the urgency turmolland, dynamism and variety, is ruthless on this fragile, creating chaos mounted light. We should respect it and leave him alone because he had to do and that is done and it will remain. "But Light said in the same work that the experience was already an abstract question for history and he" gave everything she had to offer. "
Whether true or not, from 1920 Cubism returned once and for all to figuration. Braque has set the pace while Picasso marked the boundaries of extravagance. Picasso and managed to hold on to his title as an experimenter while Braque became the modern classic. Gray died prematurely in 1927, having also failed to take the next step in abstraction. This step would have been harder for him than for others because he had already chosen the opposite direction, stating that "Cezanne is a bottle into a cylinder, but I turn a cylinder into a bottle."
In the same way Fauvism moved rapidly toward abstraction by Matisse. Quite a number of his works from his most productive period - for example piano lesson - were on track to abstract painting, but the impulse bankrupt, Matisse became the most elegant figurative painter in the world . Purism also arrested on the theshold. Although Ozenfant wanted "the greatest intensity and the quality achieved by the most economic means" it remained fundamentally hostile to abstract art.
Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier, Ozenfant supported program in its purist, but drew much closer Stijl theory in his architectural works. The regression of Cubist, together with the large veto purists, held up the popularization of abstract art, which was further threatened by surrealism.
Despite these strong waves of the opposition in Paris itself, not quietly followed his own path and occasionally managed to score a few minor victories. In December 1925, the Pole, Poznanski, organized a major exhibition called Art Now (Art Today) held at the headquarters of the Union of Antiques at 18, rue de la Ville-Eveque .
The abstract works exhibited included mural compositions by Baumeister, Brunet, Leger, Carlsund; paintings of Jean Crotti, Walter Dexel, Florence Henri, Marcelle Cahn, Francisca Clausen, Kakabadze, Reth, Sevranckx, Poz itself, as well as by simultaneous colors Robert and Sonia Delaunay. B side by side with them were Larionov and Goncharova Rayonists; the adaists the Arp and Janco, and the whole group Stjil with Mondrian, Van Doesburg, Huszar Vantongerloo Vordemberge-Gildewart and Domela. Futurism was represented by Prampolini and Depero, Bauhaus by Moholy-Nagy and Klee. Finally, there were exhibitions by most Cubist (Gris, Picasso, Gleizes, Leger, Villon, Laurens, Lipchitz, Marcoussis, Metzinger) and their archenemies the future surrealist Max Ernst, André Masson, Joseph Sima, Toyen and Styrsky. Nearly half of the entire exhibition consists of abstract works. Some of the artists involved have not been exposed.
It was nearly five years before another similar attempt was made in support of abstract art. In April 1930, the Cercle et Carré exhibition was held at 'Gallery 23' (23, rue de la Boetie) with 130 pieces by 46 artists. Some paints figurative and abstract just like those of TorrèsGarcia Ozenfant and were admitted. The core group consisted of Mondrian, Kandinsky, Arp, Schwitters, Vantongerloo, Sophie Tauber, Pevsner, Huszar, Van-Rees and Vordemberge Gildewart, supported by a number of newcomers such as Buchheister, Pierre Daura, Foltyn Francois, Jean Gorin, Hans Welti, Cueto Germain, Eric Olson, Hans Suschny, Henri Stazewski and HN Werkman, who all sought expression through an abstraction integral. Other exhibitors were artists such as Leger, Charchoung, Baumeister, Fillia, Le Corbusier, Sartoris, Prampolini, Russolo, Marcelle Cahn and the American painter Stella, while Caesar Domela, Otto Freundlich, Moholy-Nagy and Jean Xcéron, all members of the group, were absent.
Another remark is that abstention from Van Doesburg, who was invited to join the group from the start - he soon had eighty members - but flatly refused and decided to make a group of his own. He rallied around him Helion, and Carlsund Tutundjan published and the number of single concrete art, a pamphlet whose main interest lies in its title. This is the first appearance of art concrete term used instead of "abstract" art that had been hitherto undisputed. As we know, the new expression has been fostered by Arp and Kandinsky, while the painter and sculptor Max Bill was also to do much.
In the following year (after the death of Van Doesburg in Davos) Vantongerloo Herbin and met a new group on the ruins of Circle and Square. This group, Abstraction-Creation, published the first issue of his journal in 1952, the second in 1933, the fifth and last in 1936. He has held exhibitions in a room at the back of a courtyard in the Avenue de Wagram, near the Place des Ternes. After World War II at the Salon of New Realities was founded on the same lines and in the same premises as the Abstraction-Creation, whose traditions were now carried on by an annual publication of the same size and style as those pre- war. I tried to smile when I remember that this series of groups and publications - Circle and Square, Abstraction-Creation and New Realities - all from a visit which I was paid to Vanves in 1929 by the Uruguayan painter Torres Garcia, who led to the founding of the Circle and Square. I do not claim particular credit for this, but it was one of those little things that sometimes lead to unexpected results, such as echoes returning from the mountain so enlarged that they sound like an avalanche.
This period from 1920 to 1930 was rich in comments vanguard. There was hardly a European country without one and abstract art often had a prominent place in the. They were all in contact with each other and exchanged contributors, so that a kind of International of abstract art was born. Political developments broke all those precious links stretching across borders, and the network has never been restored.
Here are the titles of some of these comments, all memorable for their courage and independence: De Stijl, Mecano and the next call, in Holland and Het Overzicht It will go to Antwerp to Bound Anthology, September arts and free art in Brussels, The Life of Letters and Arts, The New Spirit, The Free Sheets, Orbs, The Hard auf, Circle and Square, 391, The Bulletin of the Effort Moderne and Accelerated motion, all in Paris ; gauge Lyons Zenith in Belgrade; Contemporanul and Punkt in Bucharest; Zwrotnica and the Bloc in Warsaw; My Vienna; Merz Hanover; Pasmo, disk and STAVBA in Czechoslovakia; Der Sturm and G (Gestaltung) in Berlin; ABC in Zurich.
Paris was the hub of all this activity, the center of Paris itself being Montparnasse. It was a lively time when the same day, in front of the Dome cafe you might encounter Marinetti on a whirlwind tour in the capital costs of Berlin Gabo, Cendrars just returned from America, on a trip to Delaunay, Arp trying to find someone, Tzara and Ehrenburg sitting there with impenetrable faces, you may briefly with Hans Richter or chat with Van Doesburg Kiesler, or listen to the talkers international traveling drunk on their own eloquence, or you could even managed to be bothered with all this.
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