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Stone Age Abstract Paintings

As far as we can tell, abstract art first began some


70,000 years ago withprehistoric engravings:
namely, two pieces of rock engraved with abstract
geometric patterns, found in the Blombos Cave in
South Africa. This was followed by the abstract
red-ochre dots and hand stencils discovered
among the El Castillo Cave paintings, dated to
39,000 BCE, the Neanderthal engraving
at Gorham's Cave, Gibraltar, and the club-shaped
claviform image among theAltamira Cave
paintings (c.34,000 BCE). Thereafter, abstract
symbols became the predominant form of
Paleolithic cave art, outnumbering figurative
images by 2:1. See: Prehistoric Abstract Signs.
From Academic Realism to Abstraction
Up until the late 19th century, most painting and
sculpture followed the traditional principles of
Classical Realism, as taught in the great Academies
of Europe. These principles laid down that art's
first duty was to provide a recognizable scene or
object. However much affected by the demands of
style or medium, a work of art had to imitate or
represent external reality. However, during the last
quarter of the 19th century, things began to
change. Impressionist art demonstrated that the
strict academic style of naturalistic painting was no

longer the only authentic way of doing things.


Then, during the period 1900-1930, developments
in other areas of modern art provided additional
techniques (involving colour, a rejection of 3-D
perspective, and new shapes), which would be
used to further the quest for abstraction.
Artists Start To Move Away From Reality
The first of the major modern art movements to
subvert the academic style of classical realism was
Impressionism (fl.1870-1880), whose palette was
often decidedly non-naturalistic, although its art
remained firmly and clearly derived from the real
world, even if Claude Monet's final work on
his Water Lilies genre seemed more akin to
abstraction. The emergence of abstract art was
also influenced by the Art Nouveau
movement (c.1890-1914).
When Wassily Kandinsky wrote to his New York gallerist
Jerome Neumann in December 1935, he was clearly
anxious to reassure him once again that he had painted
his first abstract picture in 1911What Kandinsky did not
know is that a Swedish painter by the name of Hilma af
Klint had created her first abstract painting in her
Stockholm studio in 1906, five years before him. Whats
more, she had taken the same path towards abstraction
The Primordial Chaos series was a seed from which
almost 200 abstract paintings were to develop over the
following years. Between August and December 1907 Klint

created a series of monumental works entitled The Ten


Biggest, characterised by ovals, circles and serpentine
lines in radiant colours. The organic forms of the early
abstractions gave way to a rigorous geometricism. In
1914/1915 she painted The Swan, composed of circular
forms on a red ground. By the time of her death in 1944,
the painter had shown none of her abstract works in
any exhibition.
In the early 20 th century, abstract art started
gaining importance as artists could now delve
deeper into themselves and create art that was not
just depicting things and objects as everyone saw
them. Abstract art sprang up at around this time
and in many places around the world almost
simultaneously. Different variations of abstract art
were developed and were known by different
names; in Moscow and Petersburg (Rayonism,
Constructivism), in Netherlands (De Stijl), in Paris
(Cubism), and in Munich (The Bauhaus).
Then came the ultimate defining point in the
history of art; and that was Abstract Expressionism.
Up until this point, abstract art was mostly
practiced in Europe, specifically in Paris. But in
1940, with the advent of Abstract Expressionism,
the popularity of abstract art took the United
States by storm. This form of abstract art emerged
in New York in the 1940s and wasnt so much a
school of art as it was a new way of thinking. The
abstract expressionists broke away from the
conventions of the past and began creating art that

was previously not deemed as acceptable in


the art world. Thus abstract art can be called a
type of rebellion by artists of that time.
The history of abstract art can thus be seen as a
process that evolved slowly but surely and reached
its culmination with the emergence of Abstract
Expressionism or true Abstract Art.

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