Trang

Nhãn

Thứ Năm, 25 tháng 9, 2014

Contemporary Figurative And Genre Art

By Elsa Noel


In Academy's genre hierarchy, genre art is one of the genres, together with other types, for example, landscape and portraits. The main subject on these artworks are people, and they have to do something. If they don't, the painting is actually a portrait. Both figurative and genre art have people as their main subject, but these terms aren't synonyms. All genre art can be considered as figuratism, just like most other non-abstract works.

Figurative art is even easier to describe. It always refer to the real world, and presented themes should always be recognizable. Of course, artists can picture this real world on their unique way, and they don't have to follow any special principle. They use all imaginable techniques and materials, using shades, lines and colors to achieve different effects, volume or perspective.

Although figuratism may contain different simplifications of the form, especially when it comes to paintings, this type of art is basically representational rather than abstract. Generally it may be said that figurative may be applied to all art before abstract. Today, this term is mostly used to define any art form that isn't abstract. In short, if you can tell what it is, it is definitely figuratism.

All types of media are accepted, including watercolor, oil, acrylic or any other form o expression. This art-form is focused on human figures, and they are the main subject on most paintings. They can be dressed or not. The obvious conclusion is that all portraits have to be figuratism, as long as you can recognize the subject. The artist can be more focused on shape and colors, or on emotions, depending on his style.

There are no real limits to interpretation. Although this is a real figure based representation, using different styles, methods and materials results in countless variations. The main thing is that the main subject has to be recognizable at some point. Although expressionism is the best example for this category, other styles, for example cubism, belong to figurative paintings as well, as long as it is recognizable.

As you can see, there are some extremes in this categorization. On one side you will find something barely recognizable, while there is other extreme as well, for example photo realism. If you check Picasso's artworks, some of his works are very good examples for this. His woman looks really distorted, yes, but you can certainly recognize her as a woman. So, it is figuratism, although the cubism is actually abstract art.

Contemporary figurative art is really rich and imaginative. There are several interesting authors that deserve to be mentioned here, for example, Johan Van Mullem, Jas Knight, Marlene Dumas and others. Of course, you shouldn't forget to check Jenny Saville and John Currin. They all have very different approaches to their art, but you will be surprised how interesting and by all means valuable these artworks are.

Different abstract art forms popular in twentieth century made figurative arts a little bit neglected. They tried to improve the art. In the eighties, this forgotten art form became popular again, thanks to numerous enthusiasts such as John Currin. Contemporary figurative art reflect modern world and definitely has something to offer. Maybe art cannot be improved, but it can offer something new and exciting.




About the Author:



Không có nhận xét nào:

Đăng nhận xét

Tổng số lượt xem trang