Arte Abstracto o Arte Figurativo

ABSTRACT VS FIGURATIVE

At the end of the 19th century, many artists felt the need to create a new kind of art that would take on the fundamental changes that were taking place in technology, science and philosophy. The sources from which the individual artists took their theoretical arguments were diverse, reflecting intellectual and social concerns in all areas of Western culture at that time.

Figurative art, figurativism or representational art is art that, unlike abstract art, is defined by the representation of figures, understood as objects identifiable by recognizable images; either by looking for verisimilitude (artistic realism), or by distorting them in some way: idealizing them (artistic idealism), intensifying some of its aspects (caricature, expressionism), or opting for one or another form of representation (archaism, symbolism, colossalism, hieraticism, detailism, preciosismo, feísmo, etc.)

In the works of figurative art the represented model is recognized by its external appearance. The artist can have the model in front, allowing him to check his appearance as he completes his task, or has it in his memory. You can perform part of your task in front of the model (note "natural") and then finish it in your workshop (most of the work of painters and sculptors); or make it all in the environment where your model is (plen air, especially in landscape painting) or where the work on which you work will remain (mural painting, in situ sizes). In the case of photography, the correspondence with the object represented is a result of its own technique. Something similar is obtained with some sculptural techniques (molds).

For its part, abstract art is a general concept, opposed to the concept of figurative art, which refers to the most essential of art, reduced to its chromatic, formal and structural aspects. Abstraction accentuates forms, abstracting them away from the faithful or credible imitation or reproduction of the natural (mimesis); rejects any form of copy of any model outside the consciousness of the artist.

The concept of abstract art applies to many different visual arts: painting (abstract painting), sculpture (abstract sculpture) and graphic arts (abstract graphic arts). Its application to other visual arts, such as architecture (abstract architecture) or non-plastic arts (abstract music, abstract dance or abstract literature), is less evident, but there is a bibliographic use of such expressions.

It is understood by abstract art that it dispenses with all figuration (real space, objects, landscapes, figures, animated beings and even geometric forms if they are represented as real objects, with illumination and perspective). An abstract work, understood in a strict way, can not refer to something external to the work itself, but proposes a new reality different from the natural one.

Abstract art no longer justifies the need for figurative representation and tends to replace it with an autonomous visual language endowed with its own significations (iconography). Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color, and line to create a composition that can exist independently of real-world visual references.