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Professor

History

May 7, 2012

Op Art

The first most influential artistic movement of the twentieth century is op art. The movement begun in1964 and involved creating paintings through a style that included the use of optical or visual illusions. Majority of the early paintings created using this style were mostly in black and white and included interactions between a picture plane and illusions. They also included interactions between seeing and understanding. Unlike paintings painted in earlier styles, op art produced paintings that were abstract such that the viewer gets an impression of patterns, movement, flashing, vibration and swelling among others (Henry Sayers,2011).

When future generations look back at the artistic movements of the twentieth century, thyme will value Op art because its use of line, color, shape and pattern to create paintings that have illusionistic effects on the viewer. Over the years, it has been held that the main aim of Op artists was to play around with the perception of the viewer through the use of changing tones, ambiguous shapes and lively color relationships to subvert the picture plane. Despite being static, Op art images bring out a feeling of movement through perceptual stylistic tricks that result in an unstable picture plane. The resultant image is difficult for the eyes of the viewer to focus on and viewers are forced to turn away from the fear of hurting their eyes. During the early sixties, the fairground excitement side of Op art was so popular that it became commercialized by fashion and design industries.

Abstract expressionism

This artistic movement begun in the united states after the second world war and was the first American artistic movement to acquire international status. Previously, Paris was the hub of western art but this changed after the rise of abstract expressionism. The name abstract expressionism was first used in Germany and was first used in reference to American art in 1946 by Robert Coates (Henry Sayers,2011). Abstract expressionism combines features of German expressionists like self denial and emotional intensity with those of Europe like futurism, cubism and Bauhaus. Some people also see the movement as advocating for rebellion, anarchy, nihilistic and idiosyncratic. Abstract expressionism gained in the 1950s after the end of the Second World War. Many ideas of abstract expressionism were greatly influenced by the great depression as well as by muralists of Mexico. After the end of Second World War during the McCarthy era, artistic expressions were banned in the United States unless the artistic work was proved to be abstract. Unlike other artistic styles, this style is unique in that it put emphasis on the painting work as well as the message that the viewer will derive from viewing the work. It’s also unique in that it was used to communicate hidden messages.

Pop art

The Pop art movement started in Britain before spreading to the United States and other parts of the world. Unlike earlier artistic movements, Pop art came up with new ideas that included incorporating images from popular culture like news and advertising in artistic works. This artistic style includes taking materials out of their context and bringing them together with others to create and artistic work. Unlike other older artistic movements, pop art uses certain aspects of mass culture like comic books, cultural objects and advertising and this explains why many view it as a reaction to the domination of abstract expressionism. This movement will also be valued by future generations because of its use of images from popular culture compared to the use of elitist culture in earlier movements. The main aim of this movement is to collect materials of popular culture to emphasize the banal culture of that society mostly through the use of irony. Many works of pop art are considered incongruent mainly because of some of the conceptual techniques used are difficult for some people to understand. Lastly, this movement will also be valued by future generations because it marked the rise of youth culture, globalization and pop music.

Minimalism

There are other artistic movements of the 20th century that future generations will scorn and ignore. The first of these is minimalism. This style did away with all the unique achievements that had been made by abstract expressionism. Whereas earlier styles like abstract expressionism used several elements to bring out the hidden message in a piece of work, minimalism advocated for the reduction of these elements by going back to the basics of art like surface, materials and shape (Henry Sayers,2011). Minimalism artists avoided details and instead used sharp forms, and geometric grid shapes in creating their work. Unlike in other styles where color was used to bring out many hidden meanings, minimalists simply used it to define surface and space.

Surrealism

The second artistic movement that will be scorned by future generation is surrealism. This style mainly opened the minds of artists to greater ideas through tapping into the unconscious mind. Many artistic works of surrealism were based on dreams and psychic automatism. This means that artists were doing their work in an unconscious state of mind. This means that they were not in control of their mind and this made their work not relevant to the existing social, political or economic situations. Whereas other styles like abstract expressionism were used to address existing problems, this style just dealt with imaginations of a subconscious mind.

Dada

This style will be scorned because of its efforts to destroy all artistic achievements of the past. More to this, it will be scorned because it was founded on disgust for social, political and economic setup of the time. In achieving its goals, the movement used rather unpopular styles like provocations and confrontations. Another reason why this movement or style will be scorned is that it attacked other artistic movements and made them unable to express their ideas in their own way.

Reference

Henry Sayers. Humanities, Culture, Continuity and change. Prentice Hall PTR, ISBN0205021700, 9780205021703, 2011