Cubism corresponds to that new modern conception of reality which it has been the aim of the whole pictorial effort of the 20th Century to express in visual terms. They strove to divorce themselves from rational and logical approaches to art. Wassily Kandinsky . Piet Mondrian, Hans Arp, Constantin Brancusi, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Louise Nevelson, and the artists associated with the Op, Minimal, and Hard Edge schools of art, such as Bridget Riley, Victor Vasarely, Donald Judd, Kenneth Noland, and Frank Stella. Before the arrival of nonrepresentational art, the subject matter of painting and sculpture derived almost universally from the natural world, although the degree of correspondence ranged widely from photographic likeness to highly abstract statement.
Subject matter is, in a sense, eliminated . . . .
Artists such as Louise Nevelson and George Segal have either employed the real object as an adjunct to painting and sculpture or have used it to create a new kind of symbol derived from both arts. The idea of creating situations wherein found objects are set in fresh perspective by the creation of radically different frames of reference seems to be a part of the current thinking of artists, who have been freed from the limitations imposed by fixed media classifications. The current scene in art is not dominated by a single style or movement, but exemplifies a pluralism that includes contemporary manifestation of nearly all that has gone before. Technical facility through modern technology is displayed by the Photo-Realists such as Chuck Close and Richard Estes, while at the same time conceptual artists such as Walter De Maria and Christo emphasize art as an aesthetic experience rather than as an object. The contents of this site, including all images and text, are for personal, educational, non-commercial use only.