Understanding Abstract Art
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- Опубліковано 26 сер 2022
- This video provides a concise overview of the history of abstract art in Western culture, which began much earlier than you might have thought. Topics include a definition of abstraction as well as non-objective art, Mannerism, Abstract Expressionism, and more.
This one of BEST video synopses I've seen/heard to help high school art students will little to no background understand ABSTRACTION in art! So affirming and helpful for me, someone who has been teaching ART & ART HISTORY for @ least 3 decades (plus)! It moved along, was never boring, was clearly explained and the right length to hold on'e attention! Thanks so MUCH! I'm grateful and thrilled! I'll be showing it this week to my beginning high school art students!
I hope you will show them my other videos as well. I know they will help your students understand art because, in addition to college, I used to teach AP Art History. In fact, it was my experience teaching high school, as well as leading workshops for high school teachers, that gave me the skills to explain everything in clear terms, using lots of examples and cultural context. After one workshop, a teacher came up to me and said "I can't believe you are an art historian." I guess I do not fit the mold! Anyway...thank you SO MUCH for your support. I'm glad this video will be of help to your students. Let me know if they have questions.
I missed this comment until today. Thank you so much for your comments on the video. Your high school students will like and understand this. I taught AP Art History myself. High school students are great!
Thank you for this - I had no idea there was such a long history of abstract art. I just assumed the bulk of it began around the impressionist era, but evidently I was centuries out.
Yes, indeed, although I think the distinction between "abstraction" and "realism" is a modern concept that did begin in the 19th century with Impressionism and other contemporary art movements. Thank you for your comment. I'm glad you liked the video.
This is great. Learned, entertaining, down to earth, informative with lots of examples. I would have never thought of the Justinian the Great mosaic as abstract!
I know. Another viewer said the same thing. Yet...the Justinian Mosaic is abstract! I am SO glad you learned from this video. I really enjoy making them.
This has been really helpful, as an abstract painter it’s good to have clarity and a better understanding of what it is and the history. Thank you.
So glad you liked the video! Thank you!
Ten minutes extremely well spent - I'm just getting to grips with UK abstract painter Jeremy Moon - and this excellent video has been of enormous help - many thanks indeed.
Great to hear! Thank you very much for taking the time to comment - and to watch the program!
Comprehensive and insightful. This video captures the meaning and all the dimensions of abstract art in a consummate manner. i am enlightened. Thanks.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate hearing from you.
Brilliantly explained, thank you Susan!
Well, I like to hear that! Thank you so much for watching. I really appreciate your interest and support.
Recent discussion with a very skilled artisan about judge choices in a community art show and how our works were relegated into categories which seemed unrelated to each other! Your short but informative presentation showed the way toward understanding of how non-realistic art forms dictated the “winning” art pieces! I struggled to explain the concepts but you have done an amazing job of teaching us!
Yes, community art shows are so difficult to judge. I never enter any more. Not worth the aggravation. And thank you so much for your positive comments about my video. I'm glad I was able to explain some concepts to you. I have lots of videos on my site. Others may be of interest. THANKS!
I just discoverd your site. Wow ! What a joy and fresh approach to break down the vast art world to easily digestible and understandable parts. Thank you! Four videos in and I have already learned so much and now hunger for more.
THANK YOU! I will keep them coming. Just posted one about an hour ago. Have you watched the one on Edvard Munch yet? I like that one a lot, and am very proud of the graphic I made of him using a cell phone. I REALLY enjoy doing these videos, and it's so great when someone likes them and learns from them.
Fantastic video, thank you!
I enjoyed your presentation. One way I like to think of it. Successful abstraction allows people to read many associations to reality, and successful realism always provokes us to look for an underlying abstract structure underneath it. Just like our tendency to read 3 dimensions on a flat surface. What's important in work that represents 3 dimensions is how it resolves on the flat plane, the flatness of depth, and the best 2d work implies layers of space or implied depth, the depth of flatness.
Excellent comment. You show an excellent understanding of how both abstraction and realism work. Thanks!
@@susaneuler9462 Hi I wanted to refer you to Andy Fillebrown's music visualization channel on UA-cam for stunning abstractions with many associations to reality and a real logic generating the abstraction. I'd drop the link in, but my comments seem not to go through when I do that, but just type in his name and you'll get there. Cheers, Regards
Wow! This was superb! And clarified many things. It also explains why I love abstract expressionism and don’t quite know why! 😀
Thank you so much. Abstract Expressionism is also my favorite style...and I do know why! Because it's good. It just really is.
Vermeer and the dutch were not using perspective, they were using the camera obsura model. Renaissance and cartesian perspective was introduced in art as an incorporation of mathematics in daily life.
Well...linear perspective, while based on mathematics, was still a way for artists to "measure the space" and make their paintings and drawings more closely represent visual reality. Vermeer may have used a camera obscura as a drawing aid, as other artists did as well. I have another video The History of Photography that discusses the camera obscura, although not in the context of drawing. It may be of interest to you, however. Thanks for the comment!
Sitting here in the studio trying to figure out what the heck am I doing............and this pops up. This was absolutely fantastic. Well-timed soul food. And many thanks. More, please. :)
Thank you so much! I will do more on abstract art. It's actually my major field.
This is wonderful. Great explanation and footages! Thank you
Glad you enjoyed it! I work very hard on these videos, so I appreciate hearing when someone likes them.
All art, like all knowledge is mere convention. Just do it.
Just do it in regards to art is ALWAYS sound advice! Thanks for watching my video, and for your comment.
Fabulous explanation of "Abstract' in contextual nature.., a written/spoken expression a representation.....
Thank you! What an excellent comment. I believe that putting art in context is the key to understanding.
Awesome thx for sharing informative 🙌
Thank you for watching! I'm glad you liked it.
You are amazing 🌟😃 packing in so much. Really good 📯👑📯
Thank you!!! I work very hard on these videos. I'm so glad you enjoy them. I just posted a new one on Modern Sculpture you will like. Thanks for your support.
I love this explanation!
Thank you! I really appreciate hearing from you. thank you for watching.
🙏very Fine art historical talk. I loved it and indeed I always find that any action, and any experience always also is related to a given event/ moment in different ways ….
Such as e.g. the emotional end feeling experience of the lived now, the awareness ( sharp or open focus) , ways of being present. I agree very much with the final statement that everything can be experienced like a composition of Music …..felt as a vibrational, rhytmic, colored event 🎵💜🎶🦄
Great observations. Thank you for the kind words. I'm glad you loved the video.
Very impressed with your channel ..thanks 👏
THANK YOU! Hard work, but well worth it!
Kenneth F. Bates book 'Basic Design; Principles And Practice, 1960, describes five ways of rendering a subject that I think would be useful for a student to explore, especially as a sequence. These renderings of a subject are as follows: Realistic, Stylized, Conventional, Geometric and Abstract. Whereas 'realistic' and 'abstract' represent the extreme opposites in this sequence, 'stylized, conventional and geometric' seem to operate as formative transitions. 'Stylized', the subject begins to be reduced to more defined shapes and areas of color while still being fully discernable. Details are lessened and or confined due to definition of more solid shapes. The outline of the subject begins to take on a stronger, more defined lineation as well. 'Conventional', the subject in my opinion starts to take on a 'cartoonish' simplification of shape, form and color areas, not unlike a Looney Tunes character or that of a cereal box character. 'Geometric', the subject is reduced to geometrical shapes of solid colors. The subject relies on geometric forms to convey it's essence, it's movement and life while being somewhat or entirely void of defining or extraneous details.
Very interesting. Thanks. And I like your headshot of the Viking prow. You might want to watch my video The Middle Ages: Magic or Misery, or the one on Origins of the Celtic Style. Both of these include brief discussions of Viking imagery. Some of my ancestors actually were Vikings - from the Orkney Islands.
Thank you for this lecture Professor! I understand abstraction a bit better.
You are welcome! Thanks for watching!
Thank you simplifying a challenging subject
You are welcome! I really enjoy hearing that.
I have a question. I used to watch a show on PBS, with a nun who showed us different styles each week. I was younger then and didn’t understand paintings that just looked like they had paint flung on them from a distance, etc., so I was excited to see the program about abstract art. I still didn’t understand. The one painting that I remember from this whole series looked EXACTLY like this: the artist took a very large canvas and painted it solid beige. He then took a paint roller, dipped it in brown paint, and made one solid, clean, roller-width, horizontal stripe across the middle of the canvas. That’s it! And it was hanging in some office space at a price of about $10k! I could have done that in my sleep, just about, but no one would have given me 10 grand for it. I do now find I like a lot of paintings for the shapes and color combinations, even if they don’t resemble anything real. But the one I just described broke my brain, I think, and I cannot get anyone to explain why someone would paint it, never mind buy it. Any thoughts?
Well...abstract art takes a bit of study. I do not know which painting the nun showed (her name is Sister Wendy), but it only sold for 10 grand? That's pretty cheap for work by a major artist, but Sister Wendy's shows were done when I was young as well. Art was less expensive then! Anyway...you might want to watch more of my videos to get more of a "feel" for how art works. ALL art works the same. Principles and elements of design. How about you watch Cubism, and Color in Art, which is an older one, and then get back to me. I will gladly answer your questions. THANKS!
Beautiful thx
Thank you for watching. I appreciate your support.
It must be good, it has a great intro music ! !
l like the music, too.
Thank you.
Thank you for watching!
This was so good.☺️
Thank you so much!
Great job
Thank you! I just uploaded a new video you will enjoy.
Thank you for making this difficult concept understandable..
I think that any image that is not a clear photograph or hyper-realistic painting etc, is, indeed abstract.
I've been in the habit of using the term Non -Representational art rather than Non-Objective art. But they mean the same thing.
However....
I would like to point out that the artist's name is more correctly pronounced Mon-A rather than Moe-Nay.
If we speak the name using French pronunciation rules, we don't say Monette, do we?
So, the first syllable should also be pronounced in the French manner.
MON should sound like " Mon Ami "
Mohn-A
Well...this was a discussion I had once with a professor in graduate school. He maintained that one should pronounce the names of artists etc. with an American accent so as not to sound phony and like an "art historian." I agree. Pronouncing Velasquez with the Castilian "th" sound is a good example, even though that's how it would be pronounced in Castilian Spanish, but not in Mexican Spanish or in English. And my name...it's Oil-er in German, but I don't insist on that pronunciation. So...well...give it some thought.
Excellent explanations. I have often compared art to music. I focus on the relationship of man made and natural forms but not in a realistic way. Just enjoy it...or don't.
Excellent! That is exactly correct. Kandinsky would live you for it.
🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
Thank you. Thanks for watching!
An essay or thesis abstract is a different area to that of art abstraction. Abstraction is the ability to absorb information from our senses and make connections to the wider world through the arts. Abstract concepts in art aren’t directly tied to concrete physical objects and experiences.
Good comment. Thanks.
Who feels abstract today ??? 🖼 💳
I am...always. Thanks for the comment and for watching my video.
10:23 Malyévich?
I'm not sure what you mean by this. I used the usual American pronunciation, which I realize is very different from the Russian pronunciation. But this brings up a point we debated in graduate school. The consensus was that when you are speaking English, it's best not to stick in a lot of non-English pronunciations because it's awkward and phony. For example, the correct German pronunciation of my last name is Oil-er. But Americans say "You-ler," so that's what I go with. I have actually received comments about this!!! So...anyway...I pronounce all names with an American accent.
I appreciate your watching my video. And thanks for the comment!
I went to all of your work and saw that you never did anything in reference to African American art I think that would be really cool would you please help thank you in advance
I may do that because I certainly cover African American art in class. But I will have to check on copyrights for the more current works. I can do a video on 19th and early 20th century African American art if that would be of interest to you. Lots of excellent stuff! Thanks for the suggestion.
This is my imaginary painting--------------------👉 👈
OK...interesting....
All art is an abstraction of human awareness. A portrait close up is still a collection of daubs of paint. Realism is a measure of how realistic something is if that was the intention. Most impressionist still life paintings are not realistic. The only paintings that are realistic as opposed to simply recognizable are hyperealistic paintings. This is realistic but not artistic. Artistic expression is artistic. Beethovens music is abstract. It doesn't "sound" like anything in real life. Noone says it should sound "realistic". Art is about intent and expression. Not realism. Like wise dancing is also not real. Abstract movements set to abstract music. Ballet hip hop ballroom. All man made and abstract. Even your eyes only process limited information and your brain fills in the rest. So even sight is an abstraction. This video is correct.
Yes, I think I agree with you. No painting or sculpture can ever be "realistic." As Edouard Manet replied when I critic said that the trousers on one of his figures did not look like they were made of cloth..."Of course not. They are not made of cloth. They are made of paint." Thanks for the comments. I appreciate hearing from you.
Abstracts hallucinations 🔎
Hmmmm....Could be.
If you need an explanation for abstract art it's probably not true art. No explanation needed for artists such as John Singer Sargent.
I don't think Sargent would necessarily agree with you. But I take your point. But what is art? Andy Warhol said, "it's a man's name."
.needless to say that young children are "natural" abstract artists..
They are...until they get to school and they begin copying cartoon characters and drawing styles!
The music is distracting & jarring.
Would be so much nicer & present to just hear your voice.
Meant with respect.
I take it with respect. But here's the thing...music sounds differently on different devices. No matter how much I turn it up or turn it down to make it balance on my computer, it will sound too loud on some other devices - or there will be NO music heard at all. I like the music myself because when I do not use it I get negatives comments about "lecturing." Anyway...thank you so much for watching and for writing to me!
I understand. It's on tv and mac computer, both too loud. I always found that if I make the music much lower than my voice, it was okay, but if it's nearly as, or at same volume as someone talking t's just too much, too distracting.
You don't sound like you're lecturing!
Promise you.
Or... choose very minimalist music that has only one instrument.
Best, & love your work!
That's good to know. The sad thing is that the music is much lower than my voice on my computer. It might be a software setting. I'll check into it. Thanks!
'Understanding abstract art'. Such a dumb title
All titles are dumb in my opinion...but one needs to call a video, or a book, or a movie, or an artwork something.
Baderdash (trying to be tactful). So- called abstract art is not art. It is pseudo art or decorative art at best. True art relates to the human element.
No it doesn't lmao. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it void. It's not about you.
I look at art to ESCAPE the 'human element' - does that mean I'm actually staring into a gaping void or something?
You live in a bubble!
@@eddiebrown9471 An academic bubble Eddie. Try to explain abstract art to anyone. You can't do it.
Really, Charles and everyone who replied - Art is central to my life...but I never get angry over it. Not worth it. If you do not like a style or a particular painting, or you do not think abstract art is valid...OK. That's fine. If you LOVE abstract art...OK, that's fine as well. There is no right or wrong, here. Art just is.
100% false information ...NOTHING TO DO WITH REAL ART !!!! NOTHING AT ALL)))just don't understand ,why do these people lie to people ,what's the reason of saying such big lies???
What is "real" art?