What is abstract art?
Abstract art is art that does not try to show things as the eye sees them. Instead it uses colour, shape, line, texture and space as its subject. A painting can be just a black square or a field of orange. It may still say something about balance, energy, silence or feeling.
There are degrees. Some art is only simplified (you can still see a tree). Fully abstract art has no recognisable object at all.
Origins of abstract art
Several roads led to abstraction in the early 1900s:
- The camera. After photography, painters no longer had to copy the world. They asked what only painting could do.
- Simplified painters. Cézanne turned things into solid shapes. Fauves (such as Matisse) used bold colour. Cubists broke objects into flat pieces.
- Music and spirit. Wassily Kandinsky felt that colours can sound like music. In Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1911) he argued that colour and form can speak straight to the soul. His first fully abstract paintings come from about 1910 to 1913.
- Secret pioneers. The Swedish artist Hilma af Klint painted large abstract works from 1906, but they were shown to the public only much later.
Soon after: Kazimir Malevich painted the Black Square (1915) and called his style Suprematism (the supremacy of pure feeling). Piet Mondrian in the Netherlands reduced art to straight lines and the primary colours red, yellow and blue (De Stijl group, 1917 onwards).
Evolution of abstraction
Abstraction grew in two main directions:
- Geometric abstraction: clean shapes, straight lines, planned balance (Malevich, Mondrian, later hard-edge painting and Minimalism, Op art).
- Expressive abstraction: free colour, gesture and emotion (Kandinsky, then Abstract Expressionism).
Abstract Expressionism (New York, 1940s–50s) has two branches. Action painting: Jackson Pollock laid canvas on the floor and dripped and flung paint, so the movement of the body shows in the picture. Colour field: Mark Rothko painted large, soft-edged blocks of colour meant to be felt up close.
After that came Op art (patterns that seem to move), Minimalism (very simple objects), and today digital and generative art made by code. Abstraction became a worldwide language: in Spain, Antoni Tàpies used thick textured surfaces and Eduardo Chillida made abstract iron sculpture; in India, S. H. Raza built pictures around the bindu (dot), and V. S. Gaitonde made quiet fields of colour.
How to look at an abstract picture
- Ask what you see: colours, shapes, lines, texture, size.
- Ask what you feel: calm, energy, tension, joy?
- Ask how it was made: planned and straight, or fast and free?
- Read the title and date: they often give a clue.
There is no single right answer. But your answer should come from what is actually in the picture.
Try it: walk from real to abstract
In the 3D, use the slider in the last step to go from the real tree to the other stages. At each stop, name one thing that was removed. At home: draw a tree or a house. Redraw it using only three shapes. Then redraw it with only colours, no outlines. You have just walked the road to abstraction.
Key formulas and definitions
- Abstract art = art made of colour, shape, line and texture, without copying objects
- Early pioneers: Hilma af Klint (1906), Kandinsky (c. 1910–13), Malevich (1915), Mondrian (1917 onwards)
- Two branches: geometric abstraction and expressive abstraction
- Abstract Expressionism (1940s–50s): action painting (Pollock) and colour field (Rothko)
- Later: Op art, Minimalism, digital and generative art
Worked examples
1. A picture shows only a black square on a white background, painted in 1915. Who might have made it and what is the style?
Kazimir Malevich, Black Square. Style: Suprematism, a form of geometric abstraction that uses pure shape instead of objects.
2. A huge canvas laid on the floor is covered with dripped lines in many colours. Name the artist type and branch.
This is action painting within Abstract Expressionism, as in Jackson Pollock's drip paintings (late 1940s). The movement of the artist's body is part of the picture.
3. Explain how Kandinsky linked music to abstract painting.
Kandinsky felt that colours and shapes have effects like musical notes: yellow can feel loud and blue deep. Like a tune that shows no object but moves feelings, a painting can work with colour and form alone.
4. Two paintings: one has straight black lines with red, yellow and blue boxes; the other has soft glowing blocks of orange and red. Name the artists and the difference.
The first is Mondrian (geometric abstraction: planned lines, primary colours). The second is Rothko (colour field: soft-edged blocks meant to give a feeling). One is cool and planned, the other warm and emotional.
Common mistakes
- Saying abstract art is “easy” or “random”. Abstract artists make careful choices of balance, colour and space.
- Thinking the artist could not draw. Many abstract artists, like Kandinsky and Mondrian, began with very skilled realistic work.
- Mixing up abstract and surreal art. Surrealism shows recognisable things in dreamlike ways; abstract art may show no recognisable thing.
- Expecting one “correct” meaning. Abstract art invites feeling and observation; you should justify your answer from what you see.