Abstract art. School Encyclopedia

It so happened that often the viewer, seeing on the canvas something incomprehensible, inexplicable and beyond the control of logic, boldly declares: “Abstraction. Definitely". In a way, of course, he's right. The fact is that this direction in art has moved away from the existing reality of the image of forms and prioritizes the harmonization of color, form and composition as a whole. The foundations of the universe are beyond the usual perception, something deeper and more philosophical. Remarkably, the number of lovers of abstract painting is growing every year, and paintings painted in this style occupy top positions in the leading auction houses in the world.

The first abstract work of art is in the National Museum of Georgia and belongs to the brush of Wassily Kandinsky. It is this artist who is considered the founder of abstractionism in painting.

Wassily Kandinsky “Painting with a circle”, oil on canvas, 100.0 × 150.0 cm,

Tbilisi. Georgian National Museum

The most famous and successful abstract artists are Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian. Each is a legendary figure in the art of the 20th century.

Wassily Kandinsky - Russian painter, graphic artist and fine art theorist, one of the founders of abstract art

Kazimir Malevich is a Russian and Soviet avant-garde artist, art theorist, and philosopher. The founder of Suprematism - one of the earliest manifestations of abstract art.

Piet Mondrian - Dutch artist, one of the founders of abstract painting

It was abstractionism that gave rise to the development of such trends in art as cubism, expressionism, op art and others.
By the way, the most expensive painting in the world is written in the style of abstract expressionism. A large-scale painting by American artist Jackson Pollock "Number 5" was sold at a closed auction at Sotheby's for $ 140 million.

Jackson Pollcock, #5, 1948, oil on fibreboard, 243.8 × 121.9 cm, private collection, New York

The sound of an abstract painting in the interior is interesting. In the office, she brings rigor and conciseness, and at home she will add energy and brightness of colors. Such a painting will perfectly fit into any design of the room, it is enough to correctly choose a color scheme, emphasizing the overall style. Perhaps there is still one caveat - it is better to place a picture on a plain wall of pastel colors.

Among young modern authors working in this direction, it is worth noting, and. In the paintings of artists, we see notes of lyrical abstractionism, where the connection of emotional experiences, smooth flows and color fantasies of the creator is so organic.

Vladimir Ekhin “Summer Memories”, hardboard, acrylic, oil, 60 cm x 80 cm

Polina Orlova, “Morning”, canvas, oil, acrylic, 60 cm x 50 cm, 2014

Danila Berezovsky “2”, oil on canvas, 55 cm x 45 cm, 2015

Ilya Petrusenko, “Sunset”, oil on canvas, 40 cm x 50 cm, 2015

We offer a walk along ours and enjoy. You can safely buy your favorite painting by Crimean artists by clicking on the “Buy in one click” button and our managers will contact you within 24 hours.

Love art and may there always be comfort and well-being in your home!

Abstractionism is a relatively young art movement. The year 1910 is officially recognized as the year of its birth, when the artist Wassily Kandinsky exhibited the first canvas in a new technique, painted in watercolor.

Representatives of abstract art take simple and complex forms, lines, planes as the basis for creating their own masterpieces and play with color. What happens in the end has nothing to do with real objects. This is a work that is accessible only to the superconscious through the sensory world of the individual.

For decades after the appearance of the first work in this style, abstractionism has undergone various changes, actively introduced into other avant-garde trends.

(Abstraction by Carol Hein)

Within the framework of abstractionism, artists created numerous paintings, sculptures, and installations. Separate elements have been used and continue to be successfully implemented, including in the interiors of modern premises.

Today, the abstract trend in art is divided into geometric and lyrical abstraction. The geometric direction of abstractionism is characterized by strict and clear lines, stable states. Lyrical abstraction is characterized by free form and demonstration of the dynamics set by the master or artist.

Abstract art in painting

It was with painting that abstractionism began its development. On canvas and paper, he was revealed to the world through the play of color and lines, recreating something that had no analogues in the real world of objects.

(...and a clearer abstraction by Carol Hein)

Bright representatives of abstractionism are:

Kandinsky;
Malevich;
Mondrian.

Later, they had many followers, each of whom made his own artistic contribution, applying new techniques for applying paints and new principles for creating an abstract composition.

(Wassily Vasilyevich Kandinsky "Composition IV")

The founders of the direction, creating their masterpieces on canvas, relied on new scientific and philosophical theories. For example, Kandinsky, justifying his own artistic creations, appealed to the theosophical works of Blavatsky. Mondrian was a representative of neoplasticism and actively used pure lines and colors in his works. His paintings were repeatedly copied by many representatives of the field of painting and art. Malevich was an ardent supporter of the theory of Suprematism. The primacy in the art of painting was given by the master to color.

(Kazimir Malevich "Composition of geometric shapes")

In general, abstractionism in painting turned out to be a twofold direction for ordinary people. One considered such works to be dead ends, the second - they sincerely admired the ideas that the artists put into their creations.

Despite the randomness of lines, shapes and colors, paintings and works of art in the style of abstractionism create a single and holistically perceived composition by the audience.

Directions of art abstractionism

Works in the style of abstractionism are difficult to clearly classify, since this direction has many followers, each of whom contributed his own vision to development. In general, it can be divided according to the type of predominance of lines or techniques. To date, there are:

color abstractionism. Within the framework of these works, the artists play with colors and shades, placing the emphasis in the works on the perception of them by the mind of the beholder;
geometric abstractionism. This trend has its own strict characteristic differences. These are clear lines and shapes, the illusion of depth and linear perspectives. Representatives of this trend are Suprematis, neoplasticists;
expressive abstractionism and tachisme. The emphasis in these branches is not on colors, shapes and lines, but on the technique of applying paint, through which dynamics is set, emotions are conveyed and the unconscious of the artist is reflected, working without any preliminary plan;
minimalistic abstract art. This trend is closer to the avant-garde. Its essence boils down to the absence of references to any associations. Lines, shapes and colors are used concisely and to a minimum.

The birth of abstractionism as a trend in art was the result of the changes that hovered at the beginning of the last century, associated with numerous new discoveries that began to move humanity forward. Everything new and still incomprehensible needed the same explanation and way out, including through art.

One of the main trends in avant-garde art. The main principle of abstract art is the refusal to imitate the visible reality and operate with its elements in the process of creating a work. The object of art instead of the realities of the surrounding world becomes the tools of artistic creativity - color, line, form. The plot is replaced by a plastic idea. The role of the associative principle in the artistic process increases many times, and it also becomes possible to express the feelings and moods of the creator in abstracted images, cleared of the outer shell, which are able to concentrate the spiritual principle of phenomena and be its bearers (theoretical works of V.V. Kandinsky).

Random elements of abstraction can be identified in world art throughout its development, starting with rock paintings. But the origin of this style should be sought in the painting of the Impressionists, who tried to decompose color into separate elements. Fauvism consciously developed this trend, "revealing" the color, emphasizing its independence and making it the object of the image. Of the Fauvists, Franz Marc and Henri Matisse came closest to abstraction (his words are symptomatic: “all art is abstract”), French cubists (especially Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger) and Italian futurists (Giacomo Balla and Gino Severini) also moved along this path. . But none of them could or did not want to overcome the border of figurativeness. “We admit, however, that some reminder of existing forms should not be completely banished, at least at the present time” (A. Glaze, J. Metzinger. On Cubism. St. Petersburg, 1913, p. 14).

The first abstract works appeared in the late 1900s - early 1910s in the work of Kandinsky while working on the text "On the Spiritual in Art", and his "Picture with a Circle" (1911. NMG) is considered the first abstract painting. At this time, he says:<...>only that form is correct, which<...>materializes the content accordingly. All sorts of secondary considerations, and among them the correspondence of the form to the so-called "nature", i.e. external nature, are insignificant and harmful, since they distract from the only task of form - the embodiment of content. Form is a material expression of abstract content” (Content and form. 1910 // Kandinsky 2001. Vol. 1. P. 84).

At an early stage, abstract art in the person of Kandinsky absolutized color. In the study of color, practical and theoretical, Kandinsky developed the doctrine of color by Johann Wolfgang Goethe and laid the foundations for the theory of color in painting (among Russian artists, M.V. Matyushin, G.G. Klutsis, I.V. Klyun and others were engaged in color theory) .

In Russia, in 1912-1915, abstract painting systems of Luchism (M.F. Larionov, 1912) and Suprematism (K.S. Malevich, 1915) were created, which largely determined the further evolution of abstract art. Rapprochement with abstract art can be found in cubo-futurism and alogism. A breakthrough to abstraction was N.S. Goncharova's painting "Emptiness" (1914. State Tretyakov Gallery), but this theme did not find further development in the artist's work. Another unrealized aspect of Russian abstraction is the color painting by O.V. Rozanova (see: Non-Objective Art).

The Czech Frantisek Kupka, the Frenchmen Robert Delaunay and Jacques Villon, the Dutchman Piet Mondrian, the Americans Stanton McDonald-Wright and Morgan Russell followed their own paths to pictorial abstraction in the same years. The counter-reliefs of V.E. Tatlin (1914) were the first abstract spatial constructions.

The rejection of isomorphism and an appeal to the spiritual principle gave reason to associate abstract art with theosophy, anthroposophy, and even occultism. But the artists themselves did not express such ideas at the first stages of the development of abstract art.

After the First World War, abstract painting gradually gains a dominant position in Europe and becomes a universal artistic ideology. This is a powerful artistic movement, which in its aspirations goes far beyond the limits of pictorial and plastic tasks and demonstrates the ability to create aesthetic and philosophical systems and solve social problems (for example, Malevich’s “Suprematist City”, based on the principles of life-building). In the 1920s, on the basis of his ideology, such research institutes as the Bauhaus or Ginhuk arose. Constructivism also grew out of abstraction.

The Russian version of abstraction was called non-objective art.

Many of the principles and techniques of abstract art that became classics in the 20th century are widely used in design, theatrical and decorative arts, film, television, and computer graphics.

The concept of abstract art has changed over time. Until the 1910s, this term was used in relation to painting, where forms were depicted in a generalized and simplified way, i.e. "abstract", as compared to a more detailed or naturalistic depiction. In this sense, the term was mainly applied to decorative art or flattened compositions.

But since the 1910s, “abstract” refers to works where the form or composition is depicted from such an angle that the original subject changes almost beyond recognition. Most often, this term denotes a style of art that is based solely on the arrangement of visual elements - shapes, colors, structures, and it is not at all necessary that they have an initiating image in the material world.

The concept of meaning in abstract art (in both its meanings, earlier and later) is a complex issue that is constantly debated. Abstract forms can also refer to non-visual phenomena, such as love, speed, or the laws of physics, associating with a derivative entity (“essentialism”), with an imaginary or otherwise way of separating from the detailed, detailed and non-essential, random. Despite the absence of a representative subject, a huge expression can accumulate in an abstract work, and semantically filled elements, such as rhythm, repetition and color symbolism, indicate involvement in specific ideas or events outside the image itself.

Literature:
M. Seuphor. L'Art abstrait, ses origins, ses premiers maîtres. Paris, 1949;
M.Brion. L'art abstract. Paris, 1956; D. Vallier. L'art abstract. Paris, 1967;
R.Capon. Introducing Abstract Painting. London, 1973;
c. block. Geschichte der abstrakten Kunst. 1900–1960 Koln, 1975;
M.Schapiro. Nature of Abstract Art (1937) // M.Schapiro. Modern Art. Selected Papers. New York, 1978;
Towards a New Art: Essays on the Background to Abstract Painting 1910–1920. Ed. M.Compton. London, 1980;
The Spiritual in Art. Abstract Painting 1890–1985. Los Angeles County Museum of Arts. 1986/1987;
Text by M.Tuchman; B.Altshuler. The Avant-Garde in Exhibition. New Art in the 20th Century. New York, 1994;
Abstraction in Russia. XX century. T. 1–2. Timing [Catalogue] St. Petersburg, 2001;
Non-objectivity and abstraction. Sat. articles. Rep. ed. G.F. Kovalenko. M., 2011.;

It is human nature to put everything on the shelves, to find a place for everything and give a name. This can be especially difficult to do in art, where talent is such a category that it does not allow one to squeeze a person or a whole trend into a cell of a general ordered catalog. Abstractionism is just such a concept. It has been debated for over a century.

Abstractio - distraction, separation

The expressive means of painting are line, form, color. If you separate them from unnecessary values, references and associations, they become ideal, absolute. Even Plato spoke about the true, correct beauty of straight lines and geometric shapes. The absence of an analogy of what is depicted with real objects opens the way for the influence on the viewer of something else unknown, inaccessible to ordinary consciousness. The artistic value of the picture itself should be higher than the importance of what it depicts, because talented painting gives birth to a new sensory world.

This is how the reformers argued. For them, abstractionism is a way of finding methods that have never seen before power.

New century - new art

Art critics argue about what abstractionism is. Art historians defend their point of view with fervor, filling in the gaps in the history of abstract painting. But the majority agreed with the time of his birth: in 1910 in Munich, Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) exhibited his work “Untitled. (The first abstract watercolor)."

Soon Kandinsky in his book "On the Spiritual in Art" proclaimed the philosophy of a new trend.

The main thing is the impression

One should not think that abstractionism in painting arose from scratch. The Impressionists showed a new meaning of color and light in painting. At the same time, the role of linear perspective, the exact observance of proportions, etc., has become less important. All the leading masters of that time fell under the influence of this style.

The landscapes of James Whistler (1834-1903), his "nocturnes" and "symphonies", are surprisingly reminiscent of the masterpieces of abstract expressionist painters. By the way, Whistler and Kandinsky had synesthesia - the ability to endow colors with a sound of a certain property. And the colors on their works sound like music.

In the works of Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), especially in the late period of his work, the form of the object is modified, acquiring a special kind of expressiveness. No wonder Cezanne is called the forerunner of cubism.

General forward movement

Abstractionism in art took shape in a single trend in the course of the general progress of civilization. The environment of intellectuals was excited by new theories in philosophy and psychology, artists were looking for connections between the spiritual world and the material, personality and space. So, Kandinsky, in his justifications for the theory of abstraction, relies on the ideas expressed in the theosophical books of Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891).

Fundamental discoveries in physics, chemistry, and biology have changed ideas about the world, about the power of human influence on nature. Technological progress reduced the scale of the earth, the scale of the universe.

With the rapid development of photography, many artists decided to give it a documentary function. They argued: the business of painting is not to copy, but to create a new reality.

Abstractionism is a revolution. And talented people with sensitive mental attunements felt that the time for social change was coming. They weren't wrong. The twentieth century began and continued with unprecedented upheavals in the life of the entire civilization.

Founding Fathers

Along with Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935) and the Dutchman Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) stood at the origins of the new trend.

Who does not know Malevich's "Black Square"? Since its appearance in 1915, it has excited both professionals and laymen. Some see it as a dead end, others - a simple outrageous. But all the work of the master speaks of the discovery of new horizons in art, of moving forward.

The theory of Suprematism (lat. supremus - the highest), developed by Malevich, asserted the primacy of color among other means of painting, likened the process of painting a picture to an act of Creation, "pure art" in the highest sense. Deep and external signs of Suprematism can be found in the works of contemporary artists, architects and designers.

The work of Mondrian had the same influence on subsequent generations. His neo-plasticism is based on the generalization of form and the careful use of open, undistorted color. Straight black horizontals and verticals on a white background form a grid with cells of different sizes, and the cells are filled with local colors. The expressiveness of the master's paintings prompted the artists either to their creative comprehension, or to blind copying. Abstractionism is used by artists and designers when creating very real objects. Especially often Mondrian motifs are found in architectural projects.

Russian avant-garde - poetry of terms

Russian artists were especially receptive to the ideas of their compatriots - Kandinsky and Malevich. These ideas fit especially well into the turbulent era of the birth and formation of a new social system. The theory of Suprematism was transformed by Lyubov Popova (1889-1924) and (1891-1956) into the practice of constructivism, which had a particular influence on the new architecture. Objects built in that era are still being studied by architects around the world.

Mikhail Larionov (1881-1964) and Natalya Goncharova (1881-1962) became the founders of Rayonism or Rayonism. They tried to display a bizarre interweaving of rays and light planes emitted by everything that fills the world around.

Alexandra Esther (1882-1949), (1882-1967), Olga Rozanova (1886-1918), Nadezhda Udaltsova (1886-1961) participated in the Cubo-Futurist movement, who also studied poetry.

Abstractionism in painting has always been a spokesman for extreme ideas. These ideas irritated the authorities of the totalitarian state. In the USSR, and later in Nazi Germany, ideologists quickly determined what kind of art would be understandable and necessary for the people, and by the beginning of the 40s of the twentieth century, the center of development of abstract art had moved to America.

Channels of one stream

Abstractionism is a rather vague definition. Wherever the object of creativity does not have a specific analogy in the surrounding world, one speaks of abstraction. In poetry, in music, in ballet, in architecture. In the visual arts, the forms and types of this trend are especially diverse.

The following types of abstract art in painting can be distinguished:

Color compositions: in the space of the canvas, color is the main thing, and the object dissolves in the play of colors (Kandinsky, Frank Kupka (1881-1957), orphist (1885-1941), Mark Rothko (1903-1970), Barnet Newman (1905-1970)) .

Geometric abstractionism is a more intellectual, analytical type of avant-garde painting. He rejects linear perspective and the illusion of depth, solving the question of the relationship of geometric shapes (Malevich, Mondrian, elementalist Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931), Josef Albers (1888-1976), follower of op art (1906-1997)).

Expressive abstractionism - the process of creating a picture is especially important here, sometimes the very method of applying paint, as, for example, among tashists (from tache - spot) (Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), tashist Georges Mathieu (1921-2012), Willem de Kooning ( 1904-1997), Robert Motherwell (1912-1956)).

Minimalism is a return to the origins of the artistic avant-garde. Images are completely devoid of external references and associations (b. 1936), Sean Scully (b. 1945), Ellsworth Kelly (b. 1923)).

Abstractionism - far in the past?

So what is abstractionism now? Now you can read online that abstract painting is a thing of the past. Russian avant-garde, black square - who needs it? Now is the time for speed and clear information.

Information: one of the most expensive paintings in 2006 was sold for more than 140 million dollars. It is called "No. 5.1948", the author is Jackson Pollock, an expressive abstract artist.

Single Barrel Pattern, William Morris

"Abstract", also called "non-objective art", "non-figurative", "non-representational", "geometric abstraction" or "concrete art", is a rather vague umbrella term for any object of painting or sculpture that does not depict recognizable objects or scenes. However, as we can see, there is no clear consensus on the definition, types, or aesthetic meaning of abstract art. Picasso thought that such a thing did not exist at all, while some art historians believe that all art is abstract - because, for example, no painting can count on being anything more than a rough summary of what it sees. artist. In addition, there is a sliding scale of abstraction, from semi-abstract to fully abstract. So while the theory is relatively clear—abstract art is detached from reality—the practical task of separating abstract from non-abstract works can be much more problematic.

What is the concept of abstract art?

Let's start with a very simple example. Take a bad (non-naturalistic) drawing of something. The execution of the image leaves much to be desired, but if its colors are beautiful, the drawing can amaze us. This shows how a formal quality (color) can override a representational one (drawing).
On the other hand, a photorealistic painting of, say, a home can show excellent graphics, but the subject matter, color scheme, and overall composition can be completely boring.
The philosophical justification for assessing the value of artistic formal qualities stems from Plato's assertion that: "Straight lines and circles ... are not only beautiful ... but eternal and absolutely beautiful."

Convergence, Jackson Pollock, 1952

In essence, Plato's dictum means that non-naturalistic images (circles, squares, triangles, etc.) have absolute, unchanging beauty. Thus, a painting can only be judged for its line and color, it does not need to depict a natural object or scene. The French painter, lithographer, and art theorist Maurice Denis (1870-1943) had the same in mind when he wrote: “Remember that a painting is before it becomes a war horse or a naked woman…essentially a flat surface covered with color collected in a certain order."

Frank Stella

Types of abstract art

To keep things simple, we can divide abstract art into six main types:

Curvilinear
based on color or light
Geometric
Emotional or intuitive
Gestural
minimalist

Some of these types are less abstract than others, but they all involve the separation of art from reality.

Curvilinear abstract art

Honeysuckle, William Morris, 1876

This type is strongly associated with Celtic art, which uses a range of abstract motifs including knots (the eight main types), interlaced patterns, and spirals (including the triskele or triskelion). These motifs were not invented by the Celts, many other early cultures used these Celtic ornaments over the centuries. However, it's fair to say that Celtic designers breathed new life into these patterns by making them more intricate and intricate. They later returned during the 19th century and were especially evident in book covers, textiles, wallpaper and calico designs like those of William Morris (1834-96) and Arthur McMurdo (1851-1942). Curvilinear abstraction is also characterized by the "infinite picture" concept, a widespread feature of Islamic art.

Abstract art based on color or light

Water Lily, Claude Monet

This type is illustrated in the work of Turner and Monet, who use color (or light) in such a way as to separate the work of art from reality as the object dissolves into a swirl of pigment. Examples are the paintings Water Lily by Claude Monet (1840-1926), Talisman (1888, Musee d'Orsay, Paris), Paul Serusier (1864-1927). Several of the expressionist paintings by Kandinsky, painted in his time with Der Blaue Reiter, are very close to abstraction. Colored abstraction reappeared in the late 1940s and 50s in the form of color painting developed by Mark Rothko (1903-70) and Barnett Newman (1905-70). In the 1950s, a parallel variety of abstract painting related to color emerged in France, known as lyrical abstraction.

Talisman, Paul Serusier

geometric abstraction

Boogie Woogie on Broadway by Piet Mondrian, 1942

This type of intellectual abstract art has been around since 1908. An early rudimentary form was Cubism, specifically Analytic Cubism, which rejected linear perspective and the illusion of spatial depth in painting to focus on its two-dimensional aspects. Geometric abstraction is also known as concrete art and objectless art. As you might expect, it is characterized by non-naturalistic imagery, usually geometric shapes such as circles, squares, triangles, rectangles, etc. In a sense, with absolutely no reference to or connection to the natural world, geometric abstractionism is the purest form of abstraction. One could say that concrete art is to abstract art what veganism is to vegetarianism. Geometric abstraction is represented by the Black Circle (1913, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg), painted by Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935) (the founder of Suprematism); Boogie Woogie on Broadway (1942, MoMA, New York) Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) (founder of neoplasticism); and Composition VIII (The Cow) (1918, MoMA, New York) by Theo Van Dosburg (1883-1931) (founder of De Stijl and Elementarism). Other examples include Josef Albers' Appeal to the Square (1888-1976) and Op-Art by Victor Vasarely (1906-1997).

Black circle, Kazimir Malevich, 1920

Composition VIII, Theo Van Dosburg

Emotional or intuitive abstract art

This type of art embraces a combination of styles whose common theme is the naturalistic trend. This naturalism manifests itself in the forms and colors used. Unlike geometric abstraction, which is almost anti-nature, intuitive abstraction often depicts nature, but in a less representative way. Two important sources for this type of abstract art are: organic abstraction (also called biomorphic abstraction) and surrealism. Perhaps the most famous artist specializing in this art form was the Russian-born Mark Rothko (1938-70). Other examples include paintings by Kandinsky such as Composition No. 4 (1911, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen) and Composition VII (1913, Tretyakov Gallery); Woman (1934, Private collection) Joan Miro (1893-1983) and Indefinite Divisibility (1942, Allbright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo) Yves Tanguy (1900-55).

Indefinite divisibility, Yves Tanguy

Gesticulation (gestural) abstract art

Untitled, D. Pollock, 1949

This is a form of abstract expressionism where the process of creating a painting becomes more important than usual. For example, the paint is applied in an unusual way, the strokes are often very loose and fast. Notable American sign painting exponents include Jackson Pollock (1912-56), inventor of Action-Painting and his wife Lee Krasner (1908-84), who inspired him to invent his own technique, the so-called "drip painting"; Willem de Kooning (1904-97), famous for his work in the Woman series; and Robert Motherwell (1912-56). In Europe, this form is represented by the Cobra group, in particular Karel Appel (1921-2006).

minimalist abstract art

Learning to draw, Ed Reinhardt, 1939

This type of abstraction was a kind of avant-garde art, devoid of all external references and associations. This is what you see - and nothing else. It often takes a geometric shape. This movement is dominated by sculptors, although it also includes some great artists such as Ed Reinhardt (1913-67), Frank Stella (born 1936), whose paintings are large scale and include clusters of form and color; Sean Scully (born 1945) Irish-American artist whose rectangular shapes of color appear to mimic the monumental forms of prehistoric structures. Also Joe Baer (b. 1929), Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015), Robert Mangold (b. 1937), Bryce Marden (b. 1938), Agnes Martin (1912-2004) and Robert Ryman (born 1930).