Abstract paintings do not present objects naturally.
Abstract art draws inspiration from sensory or intellectual stimulus but makes no attempt to represent objects found in nature. It is also called non-representational art for that reason. There are abstract elements in all paintings--painting evolved over the centuries developing the idea of abstraction. Abstract art tends to celebrate the color and texture of the very elements that make up a painting rather than exclusively copying nature or trying to interpret its depiction
Early Abstract Tendencies
William Turner (1775-1851), arguably Britain's greatest painter, created light infused, clouds of atmosphere in his sea and landscapes. His "Sun Setting over a Lake," painted in 1840, is above all a work of abstraction. He evoked a mood using color and brushstroke. James McNeil Whistler (1834-1903) likewise seemed ahead of his time. His "Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket," painted in 1874, has the energy, dynamism and use of color of the abstract painters a century later.
Technology and Painting
The advent of mechanical reproduction and photography, starting in the 1880s, led some painters to abandon attempts to reproduce nature. Art historians often credit Vasily Kandinsky (1866-1913) with painting the first abstract works of art. His paintings evolved from highly personal interpretations of nature to increasingly non-representational celebrations of pure form and color. Henri Matisse (1869-1954) achieved fame for his highly colored paintings that emphasized expressive lines. His canvases became increasingly abstract simplifying forms into flat color shapes.
European Abstract Artists
Paul Klee (1879-1940) shared some of the mysticism of Kandinsky and was an excellent draftsman. He worked free from conventional representational constraints, instead using color and line to access the viewer. Many forward-looking artists worked in Europe after World War I. Chaim Soutine's visceral works (1893-1943) are as much about the swirling colors and raw brushstrokes as the subject matter. Francis Bacon's (1909-1992) portraits of tortured and transfigured flesh approach abstraction as evidenced in his reworking of Diego Velasquez's portrait of Pope Innocent X.
American Abstract Expressionists
New York became the locus of new painting after World War II. Artists such as Wilhelm De Kooning (1904-1997) emigrated to the United States from Europe and found new stimulus in the bright advertisements and architecture of the booming 1950s. His "Excavation" is a U.S. brand of abstraction--full of energy and anxiety. Painters searched for new forms of expression, and Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) found his in action painting. Rather than painting with a brush, Pollock laid down huge sections of canvas on the floor and dripped or flung paint onto it, transferring his own kinetic energy into art. Franz Kline (1910-1962) used brushes and mainly black and white paint to create dynamic and bold abstract works. Helen Frankenthaler, born in 1928, used very thin layers of paint to color, or stain the canvas, exploring the interaction of paint and canvas ground as well as color and shape.
Color Field Abstraction
Morris Louis (1912-1962) transitioned from abstract impressionism to color-field painting in the 1950s. Color field abstract painting concentrated on flat bold patches of color often on very large canvases. Barnett Newman's work (1905-1970) often involved large canvases covered with one color and thin lines or "zips" on contrasting pigment. The thin lines divided space but also helped define it, placing a dominant forward moving color next to a receding color. Mark Rothko (1903-1970) placed large rectangles of color next to thinner bands of pigment.
