When we think of representational art, we imagine the artist painting the scene itself. A landscape, a still life, a person in profile — these things are what the audience sees and what the artist is trying to copy.
The challenge for non-representational artists is to give their audience something else to see. Instead of copying a scene, they have to force the viewer to look at a 2-dimensional surface and make that surface come alive.
The five leading non-representational artists of our time may be:
1. Susan Rothenberg – American – b. 1943 – d. 2015
The purpose of this blog is to promote the works of five leading non-representational artists: Yves Klein, Victor Vasarely, Piet Mondrian, Gordon Onslow Ford and Kazimir Malevich.
The purpose of this blog is to promote the works of five leading non-representational artists: Yves Klein, Victor Vasarely, Piet Mondrian, Gordon Onslow Ford and Kazimir Malevich.
Yves Klein (1928–1962) was a French artist best known for his use of the color blue. He also produced monochromatic paintings with red, yellow and green. He was an important figure in post-war European art and was highly influential among the latest generation of Russian artists.
Tone:matter-of-fact
Many artists are now expressing themselves without the aid of traditional media. They are creating a new artistic movement called Non-Representational Art.
Five artists who are leading this movement, and their most famous works are:
1. Yves Klein (1928-1962)- France. His famous Monotone Series (1953-1962) consisted of paintings, sculptures, and performance art pieces in which he used the most basic elements to create an effect of infinite space. He was also leader of the group DADA, who were best known for their anti-art stance and use of humor and mockery in their work.
2. Kasimir Malevich (1878-1935)- Russia. A pioneer of non-representational art, he created his first Suprematist Composition in 1915, which was exhibited in 1916 at the ‘0.10’ exhibition organized by the Suprematist group which he helped found with other Russian artists in 1915. He later became more interested in religion, and studied Orthodox icons extensively*, incorporating their style into his more abstract work.
3. Bridget Riley (b. 1930)- England. She is best known for her Op Art works produced throughout the 1960s, 70s and 80s, as well
The five leading non-representational artists are
1.Yves Klein (1928-1962)
2.Lucio Fontana (1899-1968)
3.Jackson Pollock (1912-1956)
4.Mark Rothko (1903-1970)
5.Cy Twombly (b. 1928)
What is non representational art?
It is hard to explain what non representational art is. The best way to define it is by saying what it is not. Non representational art does not depict something that can be seen through a microscope, or some other kind of scientific instrument. The artist does not use the tools of science to make the painting. The artist does not use the rules of perspective or any other technique we learn in art school.
It may sound like I am saying that representational art depicts something with a microscope and non representational art doesn’t. This is not true. There are many kinds of representational art that don’t depict something seen through a microscope, such as impressionism and cubism. In fact there are multiple ways of making representational art that avoid the use of microscopes or any other scientific instrument.
What I am saying is that non representational art does not use the techniques learned in art school, which are based on perspective rules and other techniques used by scientists to draw their specimens for their research papers and lab reports.
This definition means that you can’t explain what non representational painting is by looking at a picture made by someone who calls themselves an abstract expressionist, action painter, minimal artist, pop artist,
What is non representational art?
As its name suggests, non representational art does not attempt to represent the physical world. In other words, it does not use recognizable subjects such as people, animals, buildings, or landscapes. Instead, the artist uses abstract shapes and colors to convey his feelings and thoughts about a particular subject.
Non representational art is sometimes called abstraction, and some people think of it as being on the opposite end of the spectrum from realism. However, that is not always so. Some abstract artists use recognizable things such as faces or flowers in their work. They do this for several reasons:
They may want their work to remind people of a certain thing or person.
They may want to show their mastery of a particular style by using it to create something recognizably real.
They may want to pay homage to an earlier artist by using his or her subject matter in a new way.
The most famous abstract artists have been Cubist painters like Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque who used geometric shapes and overlapping planes of color to create images of things they had seen in everyday life such as musicians and card players. They did this partly because when they painted these images they were trying to depict what they felt about those things
For my own curiosity, I decided to take a closer look at some of the best-known examples of nonrepresentational art to see if I could find something in them that was not entirely arid or boring.
Trying to get into the spirit of these artists, I assembled a collection of their works and placed them on my floor.
I then lay down on the floor looking up at them and closed my eyes, trying to let the images they evoked fill my head.
After a while, I thought I felt something stirring in me. Perhaps it was just the onset of indigestion, but my stomach seemed to be telling me there was more here than meets the eye.
What followed was an intense experience unlike any other I’ve had, which lasted for about fifteen minutes before fading away again.
It was like being high in some way; as if each of these pictures represented a different drug that had been absorbed by my body through the carpet and was now pulsing through every vein and nerve ending. The problem with this state of mind is that it’s very difficult to describe afterward what exactly you were thinking or feeling. It’s gone, and all you’re left with is an impressionistic recollection in words or a few scattered images.
