by Andrea Theisson

Created on: March 31, 2009

Form and color alone are the two main hallmarks of Abstract Painting. Russian Wassily Kandinsky was perhaps the first to fully verbalize and show this, with his "Improvisations," painted around 1910 - 1915. Many others followed: Mondrian, Stella, Leger, Klee, Duchamp, de Kooning along with Pablo Picasso, who was the most prolific and outstanding of the early 20th Century movement. These artists evolved from the earlier Fauves and Expressionists, yet took the analysis of shapes and synthesis of colors another step to a more pure abstraction, or separation, from reality. It was an exciting time, and they fed off of each other's processes. Abstract art is about expressing this different view, or reacting to the artist's essential gesture.

The artists themselves tried to explain this to a skeptical world in letters, treatises and manifestos - such as this by Kandinsky, written in 1910: "A largely unconscious, spontaneous expression of inner character, of non-material nature. This I call an Improvisation..Cold calculation, random spots of colour, mathematically exact construction (clearly shown or concealed), drawing that is now silent and now strident, painstaking thoroughness, colours like a flourish of trumpets or a pianissimo on the violin, great, calm, oscillating, splintered surfaces. Is this not form? Is this not the means? To speak of mystery in terms of mystery. Is this not content? Is this not the conscious and unconscious goal of the compelling urge to create.?...We feel sorry for those whose souls are deaf to the voice of art." *

As most radical thoughts or movements, Abstract Art became even more analytical, and also deconstructed. The explanation lies in the complexity of society, and the 20th Century was a rapidly changing time. Eventually, the color field paintings of Hans Hofmann and the action paintings of Pollock, Morris and Frankenthaler developed in the mid-century. Scale and materials shifted, yet the cerebral complexity behind the artists' seemingly spontaneous work remained essential to this very simplified visual experience. Abstract Painting achieved a universal acknowledgement in the art world, as psychology also gained recognition over this dynamic century. I believe that only the first-person accounts by the artists are acceptable explanations of motive or intent. Yet, we can all appreciate this art in the context of society, and the evolution of culture.

Interestingly, most of these artists were actually trained professionally in representative,

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