El sexto con sentido: COLOURS AND CREATIVITY

Abstract art is modern art which does not represent images of our everyday world. It has colour, lines and shapes (form), but they are not intended to represent objects or living things. Often the artists were influenced by ideas and philosophies.

Abstract art is found in painting and in sculpture. There are also many works of art which are partly abstract, and partly representational. And there are many artists who work in abstract and other types of modern art.

Purely abstract art is a 20th-century invention. It grew out of the earlier forms of modern art, but it is perhaps the one movement which is absolutely modern. It has no roots in earlier art (as we use the term today).

Five things to know

According to the Royal Academy, there are five things we should know about abstract expressionism:

"It was the product of an extraordinary time": a common experience of artists living in 1940s New York.
"It took scale to new levels": the artworks were very large.
"It made the viewer part of the art". This one is not everyone's experience.
"It resisted traditional confines". For example, an all-over composition instead of a central focal point.
"Its artists were close but independent". Each had their own unique style.

Images for kids

Wassily Kandinsky, 1912, Improvisation 27 (Garden of Love II), oil on canvas, 47 3/8 x 55 1/4 in. (120.3 x 140.3 cm), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Exhibited at the 1913 Armory Show

Pablo Picasso, 1913–14, Head(Tête), cut and pasted colored paper, gouache and charcoal on paperboard, 43.5 x 33 cm, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh