Abstract art

Abstract art is art that does not depict objects in the natural world, but instead uses colour and form in a non-representational way. In the very early 20th century, the term was more often used to describe art, such as Cubist and Futurist art, that depicts real forms in a simplified or rather reduced way—keeping only an allusion to the original natural subject. Such paintings were often claimed to capture something of the depicted objects' immutable intrinsic qualities rather than its external appearance. (See abstraction.) The more precise terms, "non-figurative art," "non-objective art," and "non-representational art" avoid any possible ambiguity. The most common understanding of abstract art is as a phenomenon of 20th century. Abstract painting appeared at virtually the same time (ca. 1911) across the borders and continents of the cultures actively participating in Western culture. For this reason, it isn't clear who the first Modernist abstract painter was: it could have been... full article at wikipedia