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Definition: abstract art from The Macquarie Dictionary
1.

a 20th-century concept of art, which rejects the function of art as portraying perceived reality; non-representational art.

Plural: abstract arts


abstract art

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Nonrepresentational art. Ornamental art without figurative representation occurs in most cultures. The modern abstract movement in sculpture and painting emerged in Europe and North America between 1910 and 1920. Two approaches produce different abstract styles: images that have been ‘abstracted’ from nature to the point where they no longer reflect a conventional reality, and nonobjective, or ‘pure’, art forms, without any reference to reality. History Abstract art began in the avant-garde movements of the late 19th century – Impressionism , neo-Impressionism , and post-Impressionism . These styles of painting reduced the importance of the original subject matter and began to emphasize the creative process of painting itself. In the first decade of the 20th century, some painters in Europe began to abandon the established Western conventions of imitating nature and of storytelling and developed a new artistic form and expression. Abstract artists Vasily Kandinsky is generally regarded…
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Full text Article abstract art

From Philip's Encyclopedia
Art in which recognizable objects are reduced to schematic marks. Although abstraction was evident in the impressionist, neo- and post-impressionist movements of the late 19th century, a separate identity did not become established until the early 20th century. Its most radical form is called…
| 208 words
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Full text Article ABSTRACT ART

From 100 Ideas that Changed Art
“Abstract art” is a term loosely applied to any kind of work that doesn't seem to represent observable reality. Modern practitioners have made more positive claims for the practice, proposing that abstraction liberates the artist from the constraints of mimetic representation and gives form to…
| 477 words
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Full text Article abstract art

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Art, including painting, sculpture, and graphic art, that does not represent recognizable objects. In the late 19th century the traditional European conception of art as the imitation of nature was abandoned in favour of the imagination and the unconscious. Abstraction developed in the early 20th…
| 165 words
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Full text Article abstract art

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Nonrepresentational art. Ornamental art without figurative representation occurs in most cultures. The modern abstract movement in sculpture and painting emerged in Europe and North America between 1910 and 1920. Two approaches produce different abstract styles: images that have been ‘abstracted’ …
| 454 words
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Full text Article abstract art

From The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Houghton Mifflin
| 42 words

Full text Article abstract art

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
| 7 words
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Full text Article abstract art

From The Macquarie Dictionary
| 30 words

Full text Article abstract art

From The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms
| 36 words
Las Casas Colgadas, or The Hanging Houses, which now house the Museum of Spanish Abstract Art.
| 58 words , 1 image
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Full text Article Lissitzky, El (Eliezer Markowich)

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Russian painter, designer, printmaker, typographer, and illustrator. Like his fellow Russian Malevich , he was a pioneer of non-objective art. In his Prouns series of lithographs and works on paper, he floated precise, geometric forms against an infinite white ground, as in Proun 7A, Moscow 1919–20…
| 167 words
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