The idea behind abstract art (sometimes also known as non-representational art) is that the artist need not strive to depict visual reality but may express deeper truths through the use of abstract shapes, colours and forms. It is a philosophy that has found expression in an array of genres, from Impressionism and Expressionism to Cubism, Surrealism, Op-Art (whose leading exponents included Victor Vasarely and Bridget Riley), Pop Art and Conceptual Art. In the words of the French artist, Robert Delaunay: ‘As long as art cannot get free from the object, it will continue to be a description.’
In ancient times, figures as eminent as Plato had noted the intrinsic beauty in, for example, straight lines and circles, but for many hundreds of years leading up to the late 19th century, the orthodox view from the academies that ruled the European art scene was that the artist should strive to show something recognizable – a person, an object, a landscape or seascape – in their works.
Then came a succession of movements that began to question the notion that artistic worth was in direct relationship to a work’s naturalistic nature. It is Maurice Denis who is generally thought of as the great philosopher of abstract art. In New Theories of Modern and Sacred Art (1922), he wrote: ‘Remember that a picture, before being a battle horse, a nude, an anecdote or whatnot, is essentially a flat surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order.’
Not all were convinced by his arguments. Picasso, notably, never really accepted that there was such a thing as abstract art (despite others linking him with the movement). ‘There is no abstract art,’ he insisted. ‘You always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.’ Yet the ideas of Denis would spread to many other movements over the ensuing decades. Among them were the abstract expressionists, who emerged from the 1940s and whose undoubted star was Jackson Pollock, famous for his vivid paint-spattered canvases that showed scant regard for anything approaching traditional form.
Another giant of abstract practice, the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, put it like this:
Working in the abstract way seems to release one’s personality and sharpen the perceptions so that in the observation of humanity or landscape it is the wholeness of inner intention which moves one so profoundly. The components fall into place and one is no longer aware of the detail except as the necessary significance of wholeness and unity . . .