ABSTRACT ART

Style and movement in painting and sculpture that originated about 1910 in Europe. The abstract artist eliminates from his work recognizable subject matter and concentrates upon relationships of form, color, line, movement, and texture for aesthetic impact and emotional suggestion. The Russian-born Vassili Kandinsky is generally credited with having created the first complete abstract painting. Other pioneers in abstract and near-abstract painting are the Spaniard Pablo Picasso and the Frenchman Georges Braque, in their cubist period; the Dutch Piet Mondrian; and the Russian Kazimir Malevich. The Rumanian Constantin Brancusi has probably been the most influential abstract sculptor. Abstraction became the major style in world art after World War II, with two main currents discernible in painting. One is geometric abstraction, which utilizes geometric and near-geometric shapes and is related to the tradition of cubism (q.v) and to the work of Mondrian. In America this type of painting is associated with the German-born Josef Albers and others. The other is abstract expressionism, related to the more emotional stlyle of Kandinsky.