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THE EFFECTS OF RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE ARTISTS ON THE ABSTRACT ART AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY


This thesis study, titled "The Effects of Russian Avant-garde Artists on Abstract Art at the Beginning of the 20th Century", examines the question of how and in what way the works of Russian artists, who are described as avant-garde in their own countries and in the art groups they join in various European countries, affect the artistic and technical production processes of artists living in Europe and the USA during their own time and after the Second World War. Many artists born in the Russian geography, called the Russian Avant-garde, received education in the best schools of their time in the fields of science and art such as Painting, Theater, Music, Architecture, Construction, Textile Products Engineering, and they are people who are very distinguished in their own country or in other countries, work actively, have very strong intellectual aspects, and have won the admiration of art lovers and art authorities with the artworks they produce.
Within the scope of the research, first of all, the concept of Avant-garde was examined, then the art groups before the Avant-garde, which prepared the intellectual, philosophical and technical conditions that were very important for the formation of the Avant-garde in Russia, were examined, these art groups are groups of artists who have influenced the society they live in with the art activities they carry out.
By looking at the characteristics of the works of art produced by the Russian Avant-garde during their historical period, we can analyze them under three main headings. When the visual arts are examined in the history of painting, Wassily KANDINSKY with his abstract painting, which is said to have made the first abstract painting, Kazimir MALEVICH, who started the Suprematism art movement, and Vlademir TATLIN with the Constructivism art movement.
The painting style, which is said to have started with Wassily KANDINSKY, which we see realized for the first time in the history of painting, does not point to anything from the world we live in, consists of lyrical geometric shapes that we can classify as art without objects, abstract art, and which KANDINSKY describes as concrete abstraction, as the inner reality of the artist, and the Suprematism art movement, which Kazimir MALEVICH calls pure art, and Vlademir TATLIN, the development process
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of the Constructivism art movement, which is considered as one of the first examples of installation art, giving relief sculpture effect of materials such as wood and metal plates, which have different uses in daily life, have been examined. Abstract painting and sculpture works developed with the participation of Wassily KANDINSKY, Kazimir MALEVICH, Vlademir TATLIN and many artist friends, among these artistic works, which are called first generation within the scope of the thesis subject, not only influenced their contemporaries, but also influenced the artists who came after them in many ways even today. The effects of avant-garde on abstract works of art are explained by examining the works of artists and their production processes.
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ÖZET
Bu tez çalışması “20.YY. Başı Rus Avangart Sanatçıların Soyut Sanat Üzerindeki Etkileri” başlığı ile Avangart olarak nitelenen Rus sanatçıların kendi ülkeleri içinde ve Avrupa’nın çeşitli ülkelerinde katıldıkları sanat grupları içinde gerçekleştirdikleri çalışmaların kendi dönemlerinde ve İkinci Dünya Savaşı’ndan sonra da Avrupa ve ABD’de yaşayan sanatçıların, düşünsel ve teknik anlamda sanat eseri üretme süreçlerini nasıl ve ne yönde etkilemiştir sorusunu incelemektedir. Rus Avangartı olarak adlandırılan, Rus coğrafyasında doğmuş birçok sanatçı Resim, Tiyatro, Müzik, Mimarlık, İnşaat, Tekstil Ürünleri Mühendisliği gibi bilim ve sanat alanlarında dönemlerinin en iyi okullarında eğitim almış, kendi ülkelerinde veya diğer ülkeler içinde çok seçkin, aktif çalışan, düşünsel yönleri çok güçlü; ürettikleri sanat eserleri ile sanatseverlerin ve sanat otoriterlerinin beğenisini toplamış kişilerdir.
Araştırma kapsamı içinde öncelikle Avangart kavramının ne olduğu incelenmiş sonra Rusya’daki Avangartın oluşması için çok önemli olan düşünsel, felsefi, koşulları hazırlayan Avangartın öncesi olan sanat grupları incelenmiştir, bu sanat grupları gerçekleştirdikleri sanat etkinlikleri ile içinde yaşadıkları toplumu etkilemiş sanatçılardan oluşan gruplardır.
Rus Avangart’ının var oldukları tarihsel dönem içinde ürettikleri sanat eserlerinin özelliklerine bakarak üç ana başlık altında inceleyebiliyoruz. Görsel sanatların resim sanatı tarihi içinde incelendiğinde ilk soyut resmi yaptığı söylenen soyut resmi ile Wassily KANDİNSKY, Süprematizm sanat akımını başlatan Kazimir MALEVİCH ve Konstrüktivizm sanat akımı ile Vlademir TATLİN.
Tez konusunun kapsamı içinde birinci nesil olarak adlandırılan sanatsal çalışmalardan Wassily KANDİNSKY, Kazimir MALEVİCH, Vlademir TATLİN ve arkadaşlarının soyut resim ve heykel çalışmaları kendi çağdaşlarını etkilemekle kalmamış kendilerinden sonra gelen sanatçıları bugün bile birçok yönden etkilemiştir. Avangartın soyut sanat eserleri üzerindeki etkileri sanatçıların eserleri incelenerek açıklanmıştır.
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ACKNOWLEDMENTS
I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Prof. Dr. Teymur Rzayev, who shared his knowledge and experience with me during my thesis work and always supported me and never spared his precious time.
I would like to thank Associate Bahar Artan Oskay and Associate Burcu Ayan Ergen, who are always helpful with their valuable suggestions and advice in the thesis monitoring juries.
I would like to thank my very esteemed teacher Prof Zahit Büyükişleyen, who suggested the subject of my thesis according to the content of my paintings, for his life experiences that he shared with us and tried to improve our ability to produce works of art in every lesson I attended during the Proficiency in Art Classes.
I would like to thank my friends Assist Dr.Ayşe Akıncı Ambaroğlu, Hatice Özkan, Ayşe Bircan for their moral support during the research, preparation and writing process of the thesis, and my family for their unwavering support.

Istanbul, 2021
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CONTENTS
PLAGIARISM ................................................................................................................ i
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... ii
ÖZET ............................................................................................................................ iv
ACKNOWLEDMENTS ................................................................................................ v
CONTENTS .................................................................................................................. vi
FIGURELIST ................................................................................................................ ix
1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 1
2. THE CONCEPT OF AVANGARD. ...................................................................... 3
2.1. What is the Concept of Avant-garde? ................................................................. 3
2.2. Historical Development of Avant-garde in Russia ............................................. 7
2.2.1. Material Conditions .................................................................................... 10
2.2.2. Philosophical-ideological conditions .......................................................... 11
2.2.3. Aesthetic conditions ................................................................................... 11
2.2.4. Pre-Avant-garde Art Groups in Russia ....................................................... 12
2.2.5. Artists who formed the Russian avant-garde group at the beginning of the 20th century. ......................................................................................................... 18
2.2.6. Developmental Stages of Abstract Art ....................................................... 19
2.2.7. Wassily KANDINSKY and the Bauhaus Period ........................................ 23
2.2.8. Suprematism ............................................................................................... 37
2.2.9. Constructivism ............................................................................................ 56
3. THE EFFECTS OF THE RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE ON ABSTRACT ART IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY ............................................................................... 70
3.1. Avant-garde Influence on European and North American Artists. ................... 70
3.2. Abstract Expressionism ..................................................................................... 72
3.2.1. Barnet NEWMAN .......................................................................................... 73
3.2.2. Mark ROTHKO .......................................................................................... 76
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3.2.3. Clyfford STILL........................................................................................... 81
3.2.4. Jackson POLLOCK .................................................................................... 83 3.2.5. Willem de KOONING ................................................................................ 85
3.2.6.Gerhard RICHTER ...................................................................................... 88
3.3. Color Space and Monochrome Art Movements and Artists ............................. 90
3.3.1. Ad RHEINHARDT .................................................................................... 91
3.3.2. Yves KLEIN ............................................................................................... 94
3.3.3. Robert RAUSCHENBERG ........................................................................ 98 3.3.4.Robert Ryman ............................................................................................ 100
3.4. OP ART ........................................................................................................... 104
3.4.1. Victor Vasarely ......................................................................................... 105
3.4.2. Josef ALBERS .......................................................................................... 106
3.5. Minimalism ..................................................................................................... 107 3.5.1.Ellsworth KELLY...................................................................................... 108
3.5.2. Dan FlAVIN ............................................................................................. 111
3.5.3. Sol LeWITT .............................................................................................. 114
3.5.4 Carl ANDRE.............................................................................................. 117
3.5.5. Robert MORRIS ....................................................................................... 119
3.5.6. Donald JUDD ........................................................................................... 121
3.5.7. Frank STELLA ......................................................................................... 123
3.5.8. Daniel BUREN ......................................................................................... 126
3.6. Concrete Abstract ............................................................................................ 129
3.6.1. Max BILL (1908-1994) ............................................................................ 129
3.6.2.César DOMELA ........................................................................................ 131
3.7. REINTERPRETATION OF AVANT-GARDE ARTWORKS ...................... 131
3.7.2. Arcelor Mittal Orbit Figure90 by Anish KAPOOR and Cecil BALMOND: ............................................................................................................................ 133
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3.7.3 Richard JACKSON.................................................................................... 135
3.7.4. Andras GAL ............................................................................................. 136
3.7.5 Nedko SOLAKOV. ................................................................................... 137
3.7.6 Ernest EDMONDS .................................................................................... 138
3.7.7 Mary HEILMAN ....................................................................................... 140
4. CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 141
5. ANALYSIS OF THE LYRICAL ABSTRACT TENDENCIES AND PICTURES IN DİLEK KOCAOĞLAN DAĞTEKIN'S PICTURES ................................................. 144
REFERENCES .......................................................................................................... 155
BOOK/ARTICLE/THESIS........................................................................................ 155
INTERNET RESOURCES ........................................................................................ 159
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FIGURELIST
Figure2.2.4.1.First Union of Russian Avant-garde Painters…………………............14
Figure2.2.4.2.Logo of the Bubnovuy valet (Tile Valet) Group………........................17
Figure2.2.4.3. Exhibition poster of the Tile Valet (Bubnovuy Valet) group …..........17
Figure2.2.7.4.Wassily Kandinsky, First Abstract Watercolor......................................24
Figure2.2.7.5.Wassily Kandinsky, Composition IV....................................................26 Figure2.2.7.6.Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VII..................................................29
Figure2.2.7.7.Wassily Kandinsky, Composition, Impression III...............................31
Figure2.2.7.8.Wassily Kandinsky, In Gray…............................................................32
Figure2.2.7.9. Wassily Kandinsky, Composition X....................................................33
Figure2.2.7.10.Wassily Kandinsky, Several Circles...................................................33
Figure2.2.8.11.Kazimir Malevich, Black Square........................................................43
Figure2.2.8.12. Kazimir Malevich, White on White, Suprematist Composition…....44
Figure2.2.8.13.Kazimir Malevich, Red on White ......................................................45 Figure2.2.8.14.Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition.....................................45 Figure2.2.8.15.Kazimir Malevich, Black Circle.........................................................46 Figure2.2.8.16.Kazimir Malevich, Supremus No: 56.................................................46 Figure2.2.8.17.Kazimir Malevich, Suprematism........................................................47
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Figure2.2.8.18.1915. Petrogard.0.10. Futurist Painting Exhibition............................48
Figure2.2.8.19.Ivan Kliun, Non-Objective Composition ...........................................50
Figure2.2.8.20.Nazdezhda Udhaldsova, Watercolor and Gouache on Paper…. ........50
Figure2.2.8.21.Olga Razonova, Decorative composition ...........................................51
Figure2.2.8.22.Alexandra Exter, Color Construction..................................................51
Figure2.2.8.23.Ivan Kliun, Suprematist Color and Form............................................52
Figure2.2.8.24.Ilia Chashnik, Suprematist Cross........................................................52
Figure2.2.8.25.Evgenia Magaril,1920 Watercolor and Gouache on Paper.................52
Figure2.2.8.26.El Lissitzky, Proun's Room.................................................................54
Figure2.2.8.27.El Lissitzky, The Tale of Two Squares ..............................................55
Figure2.2.9.28.Vladimir Tatlin, Corner Counter-relief...............................................58
Figure2.2.9.29.Vladimir Tatlin,In front of the Third International Monument model…………………………………………………………………………………60
Figure2.2.9.30.Vladimir Tatlin, Letatlin1...................................................................60
Figure2.2.9.31.Aleksandr Rodchenko, Non-Objective Table, Black on Black……..62
Figure2.2.9.32.Aleksandr Rodchenko, Construction No. 127, Two Circles ..............63
Figure2.2.9.33.Aleksandr Rodchenko, Final Painting, Pure Red, Pure Yellow, Pure Blue..............................................................................................................................64
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Figure2.2.9.34.Naum Gabo, Metal sculpture designed in Rotterdam, Netherlands…….........................................................................................................66
Figure2.2.9.35.Lyubov Popova, Painterly Architectonic...........................................68
Figure2.2.9.36.Lyubov Popova, Clothing and fabric designs...................................69
Figure2.2.9.37.Lyubov Popova, Clothing design.......................................................69
Figure2.2.9.38.Lyubov Popova, Fabric pattern design...............................................69
Figure3.2.1.39.Barnett Newman, Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue................75 Figure3.2.1.40.Barnett Newman, Ornament VI.........................................................75 Figure3.2.1.41.Barnett Newman, Vir Heroicus Sublimis...........................................76
Figure3.2.2.42. Mark Rothko, Red on white............................................................. 79
Figure3.2.2.43. Mark Rothko, Black on burgundy....................................................80
Figure3.2.2.44. Mark Rothko, Rothko Chapel............................................................83
Figure3.2.3.45. Clyfford Still, No:1 ...........................................................................84
Figure3.2.4.46.Jackson Pollock Autumn Rhythm,Number 30....................................84
Figure3.2.4.47.Alexander Rodchenko, Abstraction....................................................85
Figure3.2.4.48. Jackson Pollock, Convergence...........................................................87
Figure3.2.5.49. Willem de Kooning, Excavation.......................................................87
Figure3.2.5.50.Willem de Kooning Untitled V..........................................................89
Figure3.2.6.51.Gerhard Richter, Abstract Painting..................................................89
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Figure3.2.6.52.Gerhard Richter, Gelbgrün (Yellow-Green). ..................................90
Figure3.3.1.53.Ad Rheinhardt, Black Paintings........................................................93
Figure3.3.1.54. Ad Reinhardt, Abstract Painting.No:5, Black picture......................93
Figure3.3.1.55. Ad Reinhardt, Abstract Painting, Blue, Picture...............................94
Figure3.3.2.56.Yves Klein, Monochrome Orange......................................................95 Figure3.3.2.57.Yves Klein, Untitled blue monochrome……………….....................96
Figure3.3.2.58.Yves Klein, Monochrome and Feuer, Three Pieces (Gold Leaf) ......97
Figure3.3.3.59.Robert Rauschenberg, White Painting.............................................99
Figure3.3.3.60.Robert Rauschenberg, White Painting ............................................99 Figure3.3.4.61.Robert Ryman, Enamel paint on fiberglass, aluminum and wood....100 Figure3.3.5.62.Marcia Hafif, Extended Gray Scale..................................................103
Figure3.3.5.63.Marcia Hafif, English Red (Red Paintings) .....................................103 Figure3.3.5.64.Marcia Hafif, Pacific Ocean Picture, Alizarin Crimson...................104
Figure3.4.1.65.VictorVasarely, Line-V, Oil on Panel..............................................106 Figure3.4.2.66.Josef Albers, Homage to the Square: Departing in Yellow …….....107 Figure3.5.1.67.Ellsworth Kelly, Black and White ...................................................109
Figure3.5.1.68.Ellsworth Kelly, Monochrome lithography......................................110
Figure3.5.1.69.Ellsworth Kelly, Green Black Red Blue….......................................110
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Figure3.5.2.70.Dan Flavin, Icon V (Corans Broadway Flesh) …………….……..111
Figure3.5.2.71.Dan Flavin, "monument" 1 for Tatlin ...............................................113
Figure3.5.2.72.Dan Flavin. The Diagonal ................................................................113
Figure3.5.2.73.Dan Flavin.Custom installation (Constantin Brancusiye) ................114
Figure3.5.3.74.Sol LeWitt, Red Square, White Letters, ...........................................116
Figure3.5.3.75.Sol Le Witt, Geometric structures.....................................................117
Figure3.5.4.76.Carl Andre, Zinc Magnesium Plane.................................................118
Figure3.5.4.77.Carl Andre, Equivalent, VIII ...........................................................118
Figure3.5.5.78., Untitled, ..........................................................................................120
Figure3.5.5.79.Robert Morris, Untitled,3Ls ...........................................................121
Figure3.5.6.80.Donold Judd, Artists' stance against torture.....................................122 Figure3.5.6.81.Donald Judd, Untitled, Repetitive ……...........................................122
Figure3.5.7.82.Frank Stella, Black series II.............................................................124
Figure3.5.7.83.Frank Stella, Color Space Painting ........... ....................................126
Figure3.5.8.84.Daniel Buren, Flamboyant canvas in white and red.......................127
Figure3.5.8.85.Daniel Buren, Geometric colors......................................................128
Figure3.5.8.86.Daniel Buren, Murs de peintures.....................................................128
Figure3.6.1.87.Max Bill, Composition.....................................................................130
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Figure3.6.2.88.Cesar Domela, Relief......................................................................131
Figure3.7.1.89.Alexei Shulgin ve Aristarkh Chernyshev.Electroboutique...........133
Figure3.7.2.90. Anish Kapoor ve Cecil Balmond, Arcelor Mittal Orbit, Orbit..134
Figure3.7.3.91. Richards Jackson, Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue.............136
Figure3.7.4.92.Andras Gal, Who's Afraid of Yellow..............................................137
Figure3.7.5.93.Nedko Solakov, Some Good Things to Enjoy While You Live..…138
Figure3.7.6.94.Ernest Edmonds and David Thomas, Audio Digital Image..........139
Figure3.7.6.95.Ernest Edmonds Shaped prints ......................................................139
Figure3.7.7.96.Mary Heilmann, Little Red............................................................140
Figure5.97.Wasilly Kandinsky, Abstract composition, VII....................................145
Figure5.98.Dilek K. Dağtekin, Abstract composition, 70x100, M.T.O.C.2021......146
Figure5.99.Dilek K. Dağtekin, Abstract composition,85X100, M.T.O.C.2021......147
Figure5.100.Dilek K. Dağtekin, Abstract composition,40x40, M.T.O.C.2020.......148
Figure5.101.Dilek K. Dağtekin, Abstract composition ,50x50, M.T.O.C.2020......149
Figure5.102.Dilek K. Dağtekin, Abstract composition ,70x100, M.T.O.C..2021...150
Figure5.103.Dilek K. Dağtekin, Abstract composition,75x95, M.T.O.C.2020........150
Figure5.104.Dilek K. Dağtekin, Abstract composition,50x50, M.T.O.C.2020........151
Figure5.105.Dilek K. Dağtekin, Abstract composition,50x70, M.T.O.C..2021......151
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Figure5.106.Dilek K. Dağtekin, Abstract composition,50x70, M.T.O.C.2020.......152
Figure5.107.Dilek K. Dağtekin, Abstract composition,50x50, M.T.O.C.2020........152
Figure5.108.Dilek K. Dağtekin, Abstract composition,50x50, M.T.O.C.2020........153
Figure5.109.Dilek K. Dağtekin, Abstract composition,50x40,M.T.O.C.2021.......153
Figure5.110.Dilek K. Dağtekin, Abstract composition,50x50, M.T.O.C.2020........154
Abbreviations. USA (United States of America)
O.O.C. (Oil on canvas)
M.T.O.C. (Mixed technique on canvas)
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1. INTRODUCTION
The aims of this study are: To examine how the pioneering artists known as the Russian Avant-garde, from the beginning of the XX century to the 1930s, affected the artists and art movements in their countries, as well as in Europe and the USA. To examine the art movements that we call the second generation abstract art, such as abstract expressionism and minimalism, whose roots go back to the 1940s and 1950s. To investigate and examine the effects of the avant-garde that continue until today, and the intellectual, philosophical, material, ideological effects on contemporary works of art.
Within the scope of the study, it was necessary to look at the historical background of the Russian avant-garde artists, who were one of the most important art groups in the first quarter of the XX century, and to examine the historical conditions of the artists who were the pioneers of pre-avant-garde painting and literature arts. In the following sections, examples of the abstract artworks created by the Russian Avant-garde are given, and the artists and artworks of the Suprematism and Constructivism art movements are explained on the basis of the works they produce. Wassiliy KANDINSKY, who is also in the Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Horseman) group in Germany and is considered to have made the first abstract painting, and the Bauhaus period were also examined.
Since the subject of the thesis is very broad in content, the names of artists and art movements have been researched and examined in historical order within the chapters in order to show how the artists of Europe and the United States were influenced by the works of art of the Russian avant-garde artists during the production stage of the artwork.
In the last chapter, my painting works, which are suitable for the content of the thesis, are examined in terms of aesthetics and the connection and similarities with the abstract art, which is the content of the thesis, are explained.
The research of the thesis topic was carried out by reading and examining the resources related to the subject, art history books, art journals, digital media articles, virtual museums, and accessible YÖK theses. This thesis work has been prepared as a work text.
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“Every work of art is a child of its time and in many cases the source of our emotions. As can be seen from this, each period of civilization produces its own unique art that can never be repeated.” (Kandinsky, 1981:19)
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2. THE CONCEPT OF AVANGARD.
2.1. What is the Concept of Avant-garde?
In the development process of art history, starting from the Middle Ages, the contents of the works produced by the artists reflect the cultural characteristics of the societies in which the artists live, and each century shows different characteristics within itself.
Renaissance artists felt the need to develop the works of the artists of the Middle Ages in terms of visuality and content, and with this thought, they worked to improve the use of perspective and pictorial elements such as light and shadow. Although the Renaissance artist produced works that presented a perfect realism image, the painters of the Mannerism period felt the need to make many changes in terms of aesthetic visuality in painting. These were the steps towards development in the art of painting. This shows us that painting, sculpture and other art types have always been open to new developments in terms of technique and content, and each new art movement consists of reaction and opposition to the previous art movement.
What we want to say when we say avant-garde is that the artist emphasizes the social problems of humanity in every culture in which she/he lives, and offers new suggestions in the artistic sense as a pioneer and innovative in the context of solving these problems. The avant-garde exists in the world she/he lives in, with her/his reaction to all kinds of injustice done to people, and with her/his stance.
Every period, every society brings out its own avant-garde thinker, artist, scientist, Art is the expression of each artist's own thoughts, what he wants to tell, in a technique and form that he chooses to express to the society he lives in. We can decide whether the artist's style of expression, as he says, "new", has a pioneering role in society, whether the artist is avant-garde or not, by looking at whether he has started a new era or not. The needs of the people of the ever-changing developing world are also changing. An avant-garde artist is also a person who follows scientific, social and cultural events very well. Now let's examine how the avant-garde was formed as an art term in the historical period.
"The term 'Avant-garde' in art was used to describe the pioneering movements in art that started at the beginning of the XX century and especially in the period before the
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First World War and until the end of the Second World War, it is essentially a military origin term. Avant-garde is a military term: it refers to the vanguard of an army's unit, it entered the language of politics in the utopia period of the 1830-1840s and is used to mean the standard flag bearers of radical transformations. Period; It is a frivolous period in which the universal, unlimited and endless promises of the 1789 French Revolution are tried to be made sense, and the political imagination does not know anything, Claude Henri de Saint-Simon, Fourier, Louis Blanc, Marx/Engels, Proudhon always envision their programs, which they believe will dominate the future, during this period. They establish the intellectual life of modernity. Socialist utopias promise that eventually humanity will reach a realm of art. It is hoped that the journey to this realm will be made under the guidance of art; that is, art is both a means and an end. The term “avant-garde” was used for the first time in the utopian socialist Claude Henri de Saint-Simon community to express the leading role given to art in the realization of this great social design.” (Bürger, 2019:10)
“Saint-Simon speaks to the scientists and industrialists who make up the other elites: We are the artists, your avant-garde… The most effective and fastest is the power of art: When we want to spread new ideas among people, we embroider them on canvas or marble… Having a constructive power over society, To carry out a true priesthood mission and to step firmly before all the faculties of the mind: Here is the glorious destiny of art!” According to this quote, Saint-Simon sees artists as persons with the power to transform the people with the potential to bring about a revolution.” (Bürger, 2019:11)
“There were also those who rejected this revolutionary role that Saint-Simon gave to the artist. ‘Art according to this group; It should avoid realizing social goals, being functional, utilitarian, didactic and easily understood. In other words, art should be for art.”
“The avant-garde is, in fact, a highly responsible, painstaking effort that probes the assumptions behind modernity.” Lyotard (Bürger, 2019:19)
“According to Bürger, the aim of the avant-garde is to destroy the autonomous art institution in order to re-establish the connection between art and life.” (Foster, 2009:44)
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The avant-garde artists saw that a new century had begun, that there were many important technological developments, and that living conditions changed people's lives. It was the biggest dream of humanity living in these technological developments and materialist order to live with equal rights and freedom in social life conditions, and these dreams could not be realized with the thinking tradition of classical art.
“As early as 1962, Renato Poggioli defined the avant-garde as characterized by four moments: Activism, Antagonism, Nihilism, and Agonism. Activism, adventure, and dynamism meant an impulse for action not necessarily linked to any positive goal. “The uncompromising character of the avant-garde refers to its combativeness; The avant-garde is always fighting against something: Against tradition, public or order. Activism and Antagonism are often followed in such a way that an avant-garde movement eventually takes over in a nihilistic quest, an uninterrupted pursuit of purity, and ends in nothingness. The avant-garde tends to sacrifice itself on the altar of progress, a trait Poggioli describes as agonistic.” (Heynen, 1999:28)
“The avant-garde is clearly distinguished from 'modernism' in that it is limited to a more limited range of ideas and movements. According to Bürger, he was concerned with deprivation of the autonomy of art as an avant-garde institution in the visual arts and literature. His aim was to dissolve art as something separate from everyday life, that is, as an autonomous field with no real impact on the social system. Avant-garde aims at a new life practice, an art-based practice that creates an alternative to the existing order, says Bürger. This alternative could no longer organize social life on the basis of economic rationality and bourgeois traditions. (Heynen, 1999:28)
“The social role of the avant-garde artist is to broaden the perception and understanding of the audience. He does not have to be an apprentice like in the workshop or academy, he does not go to school, his only teacher is criticism, the source of what he knows is himself, his experiences, his experiences. The processes involved in the avant-garde to question the substance, cause and necessity of art, after the brutality of the First World War, an 'attack' against 'denying' (Poggioli), 'destroying' (Lukacs), 'undermining' art, and 'attack' against art. (Hauser). In Bürger's theory, the avant-garde is an attack of art against institutionalization. The avant-garde's goal is to
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destroy the art institution in which it exists. Because it is this institution that bans art from life. Art can take over life only by being freed from its bondage to its own institution.” (Bürger, 2019:21)
“The life of the avant-garde in Bürger is limited to the period between the two world wars. During this period, the avant-garde fails to realize his dreams, because he eventually succumbs to and submits to the institutions he fights against. The works of avant-garde artists are put on the market in exhibitions, museums, just in disguises they don't want. Works in pursuit of freedom are at the disposal of art directors. “The order they attack, ridicule and expose their hypocrisy, showing goodwill, finally admits them in.” (Bürger, 2019:22)
In the explanations above, we first examined how the German art sociology expert Peter Bürger and other thinkers defined and interpreted the avant-garde in the historical development process. In every country in the world, individual artists or groups of artists who are avant-garde have been formed according to the conditions of the country.
At the beginning of the 20th century, in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1916, Hugo Ball and his friends formed an avant-garde group they called Dada, opposing all kinds of artistic order after the country wars and brutal barbaric acts they witnessed during the First World War. The members of the Dada group were in the pessimism of the post-war, and it was the social conditions of humanity in the global world that they looked back and questioned. Literary or visual, auditory works of art, art institutions, museums of the past, which were considered very important, did not help in the development of the social and physical conditions of humanity, humanity could not reach a universal peace or social reforms, racism and religious discrimination within the countries themselves, economic deadlocks and other problems. There was a mentality that thought that it would be corrected by declaring war on countries.
“War can be a purge,” said F.T Marinetti, the leader of the futurists. These thoughts had led to the deaths of thousands of people in wars. The Russian avant-garde is against futuristic thought. Artists within the Dada group, like all avant-garde thinkers, sought new artistic propositions for the preplanning and direction of post-war life. There is a fact that even if thinkers and artists make some intellectual suggestions to guide social
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life, meeting the social and physical needs of societies also requires some agricultural and commercial production activities. Without these activities, it is impossible for a society to continue its existence. These activities are activities that require foreseeing all kinds of financial needs and making their planning by examining and researching in every aspect. This is not the artist's job.
The ideas that artists propose to create a new social order that they think will be better remain in theory. Artists in the Dada group tried to create a new artistic language, by erasing everything old and changing to another way of thinking and producing, so that the pain of the past would not be experienced again. This way of thinking did not become a clear way of expression and thinking for young people, and the art movement of surrealism followed.
The artists of Surrealism, like those in the dada movement, had come to terms with the aftermath of the First World War, and like dada, they were also a counter art movement. Sigmund Freud: “The artist must express the unconscious and produce works by exploring the subconscious.” When he said that, the artists who painted their dreams and the feelings they felt when they were in a complicated mood increased and we understand that there were always avant-garde movements and thoughts according to their period and country.
The avant-garde is an oppositional stance, it is the one who constantly seeks innovation, to be avant-garde means to innovate. Avant-garde is not a coincidence, it covers the consciousness of social change that covers the whole society. Now, we will examine the historical conditions that prepared the avant-garde in Russia, which is the main subject of our thesis.
2.2. Historical Development of Avant-garde in Russia
The Russian country is a country that has the largest territory in the world in its geographical conditions and is more developed than the neighboring countries with the cultural characteristics of its population. “At the end of the 17th century, the development of the Russian Tsarism and its opening to the outside world, especially the reforms of Peter I, were also reflected in the field of art and made development inevitable. XVIII. century is an important turning point for Russian culture. Science,
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theatre, literature, music, architecture, sculpture and painting took on a new meaning in this century, and progress was slow and gradual.” (Uzelli, 1995:1)
“In 1716, Peter I sent young painters, including Nikitin and Matveev, abroad to study painting. In the following years, with the opening of the Academy (1758), the children of people from various classes such as soldiers, carpenters and peasants began to study painting in Russia. In the second half of the XVIII century, Rokotov and Levitsky were among the leading figures of Russian portraiture. In the Russian painting art of the 17th century, it is seen that besides portraits, paintings reflecting the daily life of the people appeared. “Landscape emerged as an important genre in Russian painting in the late XVIII century and the first half of the XIX century. In the years 1840-1850, a new period called "Critical Realism" began. Around Perov, who had an important place in Russian painting in the 1860s, a generation of young painters who depicted daily life was formed. In the second half of the XIX century, the paintings on the subject of history, and at the end of the XIX century, the symbolist movement was born in Russia and paintings were made in this direction.” (Uzelli, 1995:1).
“In literature, Russian writers of the XIX century wrote articles showing poets social contradictions, supporting the reader's revolt against the reality of exploitation and oppression that he exhibited. In the 1830s, it is a literature that created Pushkin in poetry, Gogol, Lermontov in prose, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Goncharov, Nekrasov, Shchedrin, Chekhov, Gorky and many more with his novels and memoirs. Novels and stories were written, reflecting the change of Russian social life almost daily. Lukacs describes Russian realism as seeing the works of these artists as an antidote to all forms of reaction. The critic Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, these three critics, exposed the feudal land order that enslaved millions of peasants with the method of literary criticism, and raised the awareness of the readers and writers with their writings on this literature showing the corruption of the bureaucratic wheels of the state. It is an effective and combative literature against injustice. It has created, educated, and socially awakened its own readers.” (Albayrak, 2018:1,11)
As we understand from the explanations of the above sources, there were two types of life in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. The improvements brought by the technological developments that brought the century itself in daily life and the artists
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and artist candidates who were sent abroad for education supported by the tsarist administration, the rarest works of art collected from all over Europe with a very delicate eye, are gathered in the palace of the Tsar, the administration did not do anything to collect these works of art. He didn't miss the opportunity. These works provided a contemplation environment for the Tsarina in the palace corridors. On the other hand, Kandinsky, who was traveling in the Vologda region, six hundred kilometers northeast of the Moscow region, saw poverty outside of his privileged upbringing, which he sadly described in his travel memoirs. Everything was quiet, he said, and everywhere was extremely poor, poverty was everywhere. Before the 1917 revolution in Russia, the tsarist aristocratic rulers were also the owners of large lands. The peasant worked in serfdom (a form of slavery), working in the service of the landlord. The peasant was deprived of education, impoverished, despised. Kandinsky and other artists and thinkers began to examine and criticize accepted social norms, they were aware that something needed to be changed, and they gave their best support for the 1917 revolution. They wanted freedom for the people, freedom for themselves. Art would be included in life, as poet Mayakovsky said, streets would be brushes and squares would be palettes. Art must be the art of production; The distinction between artist and craftsman should be abolished. With these thoughts, they supported the revolution.
In Russia, the characteristics that determined the birth of the Russian avant-garde, its organization and its challenge to Europe, in a rush where the empire was disintegrating, the regime was rapidly evolving into the 1917 Revolution and the First World War was about to break out, were the features that determined the modernism of Russian art, both aesthetically and socially, and emerged in the process of gaining political autonomy. The birth of the Russian avant-garde follows a simultaneous history with the West. Their aesthetic orientations are similar, but their form of organization is different from that in the West. The Russian avant-garde, like its contemporaries in the West, begins with a transition from realism to symbolism.” (Artun, 2015:39-42)
“The avant-garde movement or understanding is not in search of a certain aesthetic and form. It argues that the avant-garde man's position in the universe can be achieved by actively incorporating art into life. For this purpose, It shows his political attitude by
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opposing the existing values. The effectiveness of art in life is only possible if it is freed from institutionalism and is autonomous.” (Akbulut, 2016:63)
“With the changes observed in the fields of science and technology at the end of the XIX. century and the beginning of the XX. century, the society also changed. These developments have led artists to seek new theories of art that will reverse the fragmented approach to the visible world and allow reality to be perceived as an inseparable organic tangle of change, through a single scientific, ideological and aesthetic experience in which each field complements each other. Therefore, we can collect the series of conditions that led to the emergence of avant-garde movements in art at the beginning of the 20th century in three areas: material, philosophical-ideological and aesthetic.” (Tsantsanoglou, 2018:26)
2.2.1. Material Conditions
“Material conditions have both socioeconomic and technological aspects. Many new inventions, such as electricity, cinema, airplanes, telephones, and many more, which define the life of "modern man" and which we are now completely used to, were made at the end of the XVIII. century. At that time, Russia's impressive industrial infrastructure-huge factory complexes, endless railways were in dimensions that could not be grasped in Europe yet, cities were developing rapidly. There was a dual image in the main sources of the Russian avant-garde: the great Russian city that coexisted with the concept of the primitive village, reflecting the "new planning", the inspiration for the first avant-garde artists, this development, which we can call a two-speed. The search for new technological possibilities and the search for undeveloped, primitive aesthetic value in the Russian tradition could stand side by side. The coexistence and conflict situations between the urban definition of Russian futurism and its socio-technological explanation, and the view that these are rooted in the creation of the Russians and the polytheistic belief of Russian people, in Slavic history and in the Slavic origin of the Russian language, was felt in many early Avant-garde poets and painters. Vlademir Mayakovsky, who adopted the communist ideology, was from the first group, and Velimir Khlebnikov and Mikhail Matiushin were from the second group, but there were also many artists and writers who adopted the principles of both groups.” (Tsantsanoglou, 2018:26)
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2.2.2. Philosophical-ideological conditions
“The second set of conditions that led to innovations in art was both philosophical and ideological. Technological and scientific advances in the early XX. century were followed by similar developments in the humanities. The striking speed of industrial development in Russia had divided public opinion. One group believed that this rapid progress would have a disastrous effect, while the other group, in their "revolutionary consciousness", were not afraid to break with the past and argued that history did not follow a smooth and linear path, but that it periodically suffered dramatic interruptions. This is perhaps where the paradoxical relationship between avant-garde artists and the theory known as Russian Nihilism of the 1860s had its roots. The concept of nihilism has acquired negative connotations in daily life, but it had a dialectical use in the Russian system of critical thought. The eternal contradiction between 'tradition' and 'modernism' could periodically produce catastrophic excesses. (Tsantsanoglou, 2018:27)
2.2.3. Aesthetic conditions
“Modernism in the Russian tradition of criticism meant a new way of life that emerged at the end of the XIX. century, promoting a mostly decadent urban art-deco aesthetic, and also placing the artist at the center of the world. Therefore, avant-garde artists, owing to the "social dimension" of their work, differed significantly from the absolute role assigned to them by other artists, who developed a mature form of symbolism that had become somewhat fashionable, who lost their spirituality and expressed themselves contemptuously through allegory and decorative excesses. (Tsantsanoglou, 2018:27)
“The aesthetic principles of modernism, which had already established itself in Russia at the end of the XIX. century, had much in common with Vlademir Solaviev's 'man-god' philosophy, which was a combination of Plato's theory of ideas, Christian Orthodox teaching, and the philosophical theories of the more recent German idealists. . The Symbolists were influenced by this philosophy. For them, thought turned the poet into an almost divine creator. Symbolists used the decorative qualities of the visual arts to improve the form of written text by influencing them aesthetically, and they claimed
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that written text had deeper ties to the sacred, namely poetry and music, than any other art. (Tsantsanoglou, 2018:27)
“This joint authority claimed by the symbolists over poetry and music rested on the power of the word as a volatile, intangible material in the form of a series of acoustic messages, and this authority was given to St. It was one of the points where early avant-garde groups like the Youth League in St. Petersburg and the Cub-Futurists and Rayonists in Moscow began to question the aesthetic principles of modernism.” (Tsantsanoglou, 2018:27)
“The most difficult issue for those intending to examine the origins of the Russian avant-garde in the visual arts is whether it is possible to describe or describe the object. Until then, the Symbolists attached great importance to the object when interpreting reality. According to the Russian artists of the Art World group and the Blue Rose group, the artist first chose the descriptive object and then determined the form that he believed would best reflect the content. That was their starting point. Whereas avant-garde artists believed that the object itself had an independence and an undeniable aesthetic value. (Tsantsanoglou, 2018:27)
“One of the avant-garde artists of the period, critic Yuri Tinianov, a member of the Opoyaz group that adopted Russian formalism, states in his work Archaic and Modernists (what we call the Russian avant-garde today) that the new art does not come from conflict with realism and imitation, but precisely from the stance against the idea of representing the object.” (Tsantsanoglou, 2018:27)
2.2.4. Pre-Avant-garde Art Groups in Russia
The first "Avant-garde" art groups emerged in Russia in the middle of the XIX. century, in response to the realism that developed during the rise in art, literature and music. However, in the environment in which this reaction was organized, realist communities, democratic art colonies defending national and social causes by rising up against the imperial culture.” (Artun, 2015:29)
“Russian art colonies are intellectual and political associations. They deal with metaphysical issues related to art rather than the production of art. They are utopian; They imagine that, through a revolutionary transformation, people will usher in an
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ideal age of freedom. They conduct experiments in this direction at their meetings. They set up exhibitions in the style of temporary museums, organize concerts, play plays, read poems… Their devotion to the ideal of Gesamtkunstwerk drives them to abolish the boundaries both between the arts and between art and life.” (Artun, 2015:40)
“Enlightenment, secularization and nationalization in Russian art, which is dominated by icon artistry, begins with portraiture at the beginning of the 18th century. In the early days, when portraits were mostly of the tsarist dynasty, aristocrats and other elites, this style almost constituted an imperial style. With the rise of democratic objections to the monarchy in the mid-nineteenth century, interest in social realities, especially the wretchedness of the peasantry, increased in politics, art and literature, and finally, in 1861, serfdom was abolished. (Artun, 2015:29)
“At the same time, objections arise against the academy where imperial art was organized. In 1863, fourteen graduates, who opposed the aesthetics imposed by the academy, cut off contact with their schools and set up their own 'academies': the Petersburg Free Artists Artel. Artel artists produce works of art within the reality of “social art” and “social realism”. This anti-academic trend will later be called “Travelers” because Artel artists will travel to Russia and open their own exhibitions.” (Artun, 2015:30)
“In a system where the exhibition activities are also under the control of the Academy, this is an important rebellion. As a matter of fact, the Travelers organize their exhibitions like a political protest. They attempt to create a joint fund with the sales made during the exhibition tours. These attempts to promote a free art market are also considered a protest against the patronage of the palace. It is this “Revolution of the Fourteen” that paved the way for autonomy by destroying the official imperial art in Russia, and independent artist associations such as Artel organized by this revolution; artists' colonies, collectives, or societies. "Artel's partner in Moscow is the Abramtsevo colony," who founded Russian social realism in St. Petersburg. (Artun, 2015:30).
“These colonies last for fifty years, but the realist trend they represent loses its power as the avant-garde gains influence. It is revived in the 1930s, this time with Stalin's Cultural Revolution." (Artun, 2015:31).
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“The basic desire of the artists of the Russian Art Colonies has been to unite all branches of art and to fuse with life in cooperation.” (Artun, 2015: 40)
Figure2.2.4.1. First Union of Russian Avant-garde Painters
Source:https://worldartdalia.blogspot.com/2018/10/blog-post_16.html, (16.2021)
“The Art World, which emerged in Petersburg in the early 1890s, is another artist-intellectual colony like Artel, but a colony against realists. According to Aleksandr Benois, one of its leaders, a painter, theater actor, art critic, theater founder, Art World is a community, an exhibition society and a magazine: It is a kind of community that lives its own life by dealing with some special problems, but tries to influence the society in many ways and invites it to art. ” (Artun, 2015:34)
“In the words of the historian Gray, the Art World group represents the renewal not only of art, but of the whole human being and of all life. “He believes that art is a tool for the salvation of humanity and the artist is a dedicated priest”. The art of this 'priest', on the other hand, is the only medium of eternal truth and beauty, in short, the philosophy of 'art for art's sake', which is used to draw many meanings. "art for art's sake" in the sense here is not a formalist principle. On the contrary, it is a principle in which beauty is identified with freedom, as used by Théophile Gautier, who put forward this principle. It is concerned, as Nietzsche states in The Birth of Tragedy, that "the
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world can only be legitimated as an aesthetic phenomenon". It is about art being "the highest task and most genuine metaphysical activity of this life". They also showed more interest in the cosmopolitanization of art than its nationalization.” (Artun,2015:34).
“In addition to Russian symbolism, the group embraced the modernist trends in Europe and the aesthetic values of the Russian folk arts tradition and enthusiastically adopted the Art-Deco style and the principle of "art is for art" in their stage and costume designs for the theater, book illustrations and other works. practiced it, completely avoiding touching the political and social realities. The results of these activities were Diaghilev's unprecedented success with 'Ballet Russes' in Paris, as well as the continued development of the theoretical dialogue on art and many important exhibitions. The first exhibition they opened in 1899 included works by famous Western artists such as Degas and Monet, as well as major Russian painters.” (SSM, Exhibition Catalogue, 2018:9)
“Art World ends its publication in 1903. Many new avant-garde colonies, with their ever-increasing intensity of exhibitions and publications, emerge from the experience of the Art World: the Knave of Tile, the Blue Rose, the Golden Fleece, the Donkey Tail, the Youth League.” (Artun, 2015:35)
“Similar to the World of Art, the Blue Rose group, which was founded in 1906 by some symbolist painters, including Nikolai Krymov, Pavel Kuznetsov and Nicolai Sapunov, opened an exhibition the following year with the participation of all its founders. The group basically embraced symbolism versus realism, affiliated with Moscow's School of Color. He was under the influence of Boris-Musatov, who used a unique creative technique while bringing together and arranging the painted areas in his paintings, which he carried out with a symbolist approach after Impressionism and post-impressionism. In a short time, with the support of Nikolai Riabushinsky, the publisher of the Golden Fleece art magazine, they started from where the Art World left off, publishing the works and writings of contemporary European artists and organizing exhibitions where the works of Russian and European painters were together.” (SSM, Exhibition Catalogue, 2018:69)
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“The extraordinary collection of Sergei Shchukin and the exhibition of works by Ivan Morozov by Monet, Cezanne, Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso and other contemporary artists in Moscow contributed to the spread of French art movements in Russia in the early 1900s. The most common currents among Russian artists of the period were Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. After the Golden Fleece was disbanded, some of its members founded the Knave of Tiles group, condemning symbolism by equating it with Academicism, Travelers, and the Art World, and choosing to stick with French modernism by declaring and rejecting all art movements up to that time as unproductive. After their first exhibition in Moscow in 1910-1911, the group broke up due to its insistence on staying true to European currents that were also interested in folk and primitive art. Group members Michail Larionov and Goncharova opposed this insistence, arguing that innovation in artistic creativity could only come from the primitive roots of art and that Russian art should turn its face to the East in order to find original forms of expression. The Youth League group produced works under the influence of symbolism, cubism, futurism, rayonism and abstract art.” (SSM, 2018:69)
“They organized exhibitions that included emerging young avant-garde artists such as Kazimir Malevich, Lyubov Popova, Natalya Goncharova, who founded the Tail of the Colt group. He aimed to spread the art of the East with Neo-Pirimitivism. The fact that artists adopt different views in art and create new ideas on art in events such as exhibitions and art meetings has enabled art colonies to function as art academies at the same time.” (SSM, 2018:70)
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Figure2.2.4.2 Logo of the Bubnovuy valet (Tile Valet) Group
Source : http://rusavangard.ru/online/history/bubnovyy-valet/
Figure2.2.4.3. Exhibition poster of the Tile Valet (Bubnovuy Valet) group
Kaynak https://artchive.ru/encyclopedia/804~The_Knave_of_Diamonds
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2.2.5. Artists who formed the Russian avant-garde group at the beginning of the 20th century.
Vasily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Alexander Rodchenko, Vladimir Tatlin, El Lissitzky, Liubov Popova, who made the first works of art seen in abstract art practices, while talking about the essence, definition and art movements of the Russian avant-garde artists who were thought to come together and form a group at the beginning of the 20th century. We cannot pass without mentioning the names of Olga Rozanova, Varvara Stepanova, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Aleksandra Ekster and other friends. Alexander Archipenko, Vladimir Baranoff-Rossine, Alexander Bogomazov, David Burliuk, Vladimir Burliuk, Marc Chagall, Ilya Chashnik, Robert Falk, Moisey Feigin, Pavel Filonov, Artur Fonvizin, Naum Gabo, Nina Genke-Meller, Natalia Goncharova, Elena Guro, Lazar Khidekel, Ivan Kliun, Gustav Klutsis, Pyotr Konchalovsky, Eugène Konopatzky, Sergei Arksentevich Kolyada, Alexander Kuprin, Mikhail Larionov, Aristarkh Lentulov, Paul Mansouroff, Ilya Mashkov, Mikhail Matyushin, Vadim Meller, Adolf Nikmerkin, Alexander Pusnierkin, Alexander Osolomon , Kliment Red'ko, Alexei Remizov, Léopold Survage, Georgii and Vladimir Stenberg, Vasiliy Yermilov, Ilya Zdanevich Alexandr Zhdanov.
“The artists whose names are written here, who wanted to bring innovation in art in their country, perceived the revolution in 1917 as a new era in their lives, and their hopes for freedom were met with enthusiasm. The chaotic environment in the country and the immature attitude of the Bolshevik administration, which dealt with the civil war that followed, laid the groundwork for an all-out art movement that will rarely be witnessed in history.” (Older, 2018:10)
“The well-educated Russian avant-garde artists, most of whom are closely acquainted with the most important art centers of Europe, and have relations with some of them, played a decisive role in culture, art, architecture, science and education institutions in the regime that changed with the revolution in Russia; This situation also made possible an experiment that is unprecedented in the history of art.
Russian painter Natalia Goncharova summed up the self-confidence that runs through the veins of Russian artists in 1912: “Today's Russian art has reached such a level that it now plays a major role in world art. Today's Western ideas are no longer of any use
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to us.” These words were a way of reversing the confession that he and his friends had happily absorbed all that Western European art had to offer, and were now ready to let him continue on his own. Many Russian artists have traveled extensively throughout Europe in search of artistic inspiration and enlightenment.” (Gompertz, 2015:149)
“A great energy, enthusiastic collaborations, creative projects and works were produced in the fields of theatre, literature, music, architecture, plastic arts, science and painting; It was tried to realize dreams and utopias that did not fit on the earth but extended to space and the conquest of the sun. Looking back today, we see how important the process called the Russian Avant-garde in its short 30-year life was and what a valuable path it paved for today's art.” (Güven, 2006:3)
“Russian Avant-garde painters; Suprematists, constructivists gathered around two main currents. While these two currents (cubo-futurists and constructivists) were under the influence of Marxism, the suprematists argued that with an anarcho-Marxist thought and a return to the Hegelian dialectic, art should be reintegrated with the life from which it emerged, while preserving its own autonomous space. (Güven, 2006:3)
2.2.6. Developmental Stages of Abstract Art
“Abstract art has been the main form of expression of the art of the 20th century, and the tendency towards abstraction, which started with the Impressionists at the end of the 19th century, brought along the artists' gradual break with the reality of the visible world. This break, which we cannot attribute to a single artist or movement, has been realized together by many artists who put the own reality of art instead of external reality, thus focusing on formal elements such as color, line, shape and space. Every movement dating to the beginning of the 20th century has adopted abstraction as a general trend and its first examples are Cloude Monet, Paul Cezanne, J.M.W. Turner, J.M. Artists such as Whistler have given. Later, artists such as Picasso, Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian, who were influenced by these artists, turned to abstract works in their works.” (Antmen, 2016:79-80)
“Abstract art continued its intense influence in the period from the 1920s to the 1930s, and the manifesto of 'Concrete Art', written by Theo Van Doesburg, who argued that
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the abstract can be the only concrete reality in art, in Paris in 1930, was the cause of many artists who adopted the concept of 'Abstract Art' expressed their views. In this period, abstract art groupings that came together and opened exhibitions, especially in the Paris art environment, were also seen. There are nearly eighty artists worldwide, including Piet Mondrian, Jean Arp, Moholy-Nagy and Kandinsky, in the "Cercle et Carre" (Circle and Square) group. The group published magazines and organized exhibitions, and these activities continued for six years under the name of 'Abstraction Creation', led by Piet Mondrian, in 1929. Kandinsky participated in the activities at the beginning, but because he did not favor and adopt the abstract-geometric trend that formed the main stream of Abstraction Creation, he had a conflict with the group and left the group.” (Antmen, 2006:86)
“According to Lynton (1991): “Both groups had an image that contradicted the essence of abstract art, so the values they adopted and their idealism aroused suspicion. These groups supported many abstract works of different nature, but they could not create a real discussion environment and set an example for the younger generation. The younger generation believed that as long as it was abstract, everything would be valid.” (Lynton, 1991:219).
“Although Lynton criticizes the abstract groups that did not create different tendencies and discussion, this was the period when Kandinsky, Klee and Mondrian were taken as examples by contemporary artists. While the Abstract Expressionism movement started in New York, in the 1940s-1960s, after the Second World War, people had a desire to start all over again. American art, which had not gained much ground in the international arena until then, became more active in world art, especially with the influence of European artists who immigrated to the USA during the war. The expressionist Kandinsky and Klee, the Constructivists of the Bauhaus, the Russian Avant-garde painters and the surrealists laid the groundwork. The heroes of these movements, which will be called “Classical Modern”, if they are still alive, formed the bridge between the old and the new.” (Krausse, 2005:106)
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“After the war in the West, any objectivist concrete art was rejected for ideological rather than aesthetic reasons. Abstract art, with its openness and non-political content, was accepted as the only art style worthy of the 'Free West'. Societies that suffered and were fed up with the war preferred to see lighter and more abstract paintings rather than works that deal with the disasters and destruction caused by the war, as in Carl Hofer's paintings. Thus, abstract painting became the dominant style of the West in the 1950s.” (Krausse, 2005:107)
The attempts to search for the abstract in contemporary art begin after Cezanne stated the idea of looking at nature as a cube cylinder and cone and showed this in his own painting works. Ahu Antmen explains the development of abstract art with the following examples in his book titled Trends in 20th Century Western Art.
“American museum curator Alfred H. Barr Jr. (1902-1981), in his 1936 book "Cubism and Abstract Art", he discussed all these tendencies related to abstract art under two general art style tendencies and underlined a distinction that is still valid today. (Antmen, 2016:80)
“According to Barr, abstract art developed from two branches, one of which can be traced back to Kazimir Malevich and the other to Wassily Kandinsky, one with a mental, structural and geometric tendency, and the other with an instinctive and emotional, decorative and biomorphic tendency.” (Antmen, 2016:80)
Barr, who considers one as rational and adhering to certain principles, and the other as open to mystical tendencies, improvisational and irrational, based abstract art on two different tendencies, Classical and Romantic, based on these distinctions. When viewed through this distinction, bridges can be built between Cezanne, Cubism, Malevich, and Mondrian in the structural, geometric wing of abstract art, and between Gauguin-Matisse-Kandinsky in the non-expressive non-geometrical wing, in which more organic forms are dominant.” (Antmen, 2016:80)
The first person to use the word abstraction in the aesthetic sense in the history of art is the German philosopher Wilhelm Worringer. He mentioned abstraction while writing his doctoral thesis in 1908. Worringer's writings had a direct or indirect influence on
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Kandinsky, Malevich, and other artists. According to Worringer, abstraction is the way of revealing the inner anxiety that people feel as a result of the events they perceive with their senses in the world they live in. All kinds of uncertainty experienced in the process of human existence, fear and sensitivity towards the god who created the existence, being away from the information that people cannot reach and cannot understand lead to abstraction of art. The real thing is that the drawings in the form of pure abstraction seen in the first paintings, which are the beginning of the history of art, are instinctively important for the society. They are paintings that are geometric abstractions made to tell future generations about a current situation.
Photographing every realist painting subject with the camera, which was one of the most important inventions of the 19th century, meant taking away the subjects of the painters. The fact that subjects such as portraits and landscapes were photographed very easily and at a lower cost indicated that the content of the Figurehad to be changed. Painting artists felt that classical academic realism, which started with impressionism in painting, needed to change. If the artists of the Mannerist period have changed the size and proportion we know in figurative painting compared to the previous period, we know that the impressionists also handled the pattern and the way of driving the paint differently. With the division of the subject they dealt with in the painting with Picasso, perspective no longer belonged to a single point of view, but there was still a subject and a story in the painting.
One of the first aims of the 20th century artist, who paints with abstraction or abstract style, is to extract the story from the painting.
“At the beginning of the era, Wilhelm Worringer, while introducing a new research logic to art history, wants to identify two concepts for all his art creations. These two concepts meet two basic impulses, two psychological phenomena. One of them is the impulsion of identification (Einfühlung), on which all naturalist-oriented art conceptions are based, and the other is the impulse of abstraction (Abstraktion) on which all anti-naturalist, abstract-oriented art conceptions are based. Worringer, who took the concept of identification from Theodor Lipps, wants to explain the art styles that aim to establish a happy relationship with nature.” (Tunalı, 1989:125)
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Anti-Naturalist art understandings cannot be explained with the concept of identification, they are gathered under the concept of 'abstract'. According to Worringer, the concept of abstract is explained by the abstraction impulse. According to Worringer, the first art created by human is abstract art. The first created art could not be naturalistic art, because the first human had not yet figured out the universe she/he lived in and had many inner fears. With this in mind, Worringer is right. Despite realizing many technological innovations that will facilitate social life with human intelligence, she/he sees that there are many unknowns in the face of the universe and feels helpless in the face of this situation. In order to get rid of this helplessness, she/he wants to reach divinity, the supreme knowledge, which is the universal legislator, which we call absolute existence. She/He imagines that with this knowledge, which abstract geometric shapes make one feel and think about, she/he will attain eternal peace and happiness, and that people will move to a different perception of thought. Human seeks the absolute essence in all unchanging existence.
2.2.7. Wassily KANDINSKY and the Bauhaus Period
According to the explanations of art history books, “It is accepted that the first artist who broke away from representational reality and focused especially on color and shapes, thus paving the way for an essentially abstract pictorial expression, was the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky.” (Antmen, 2016:81)
By 1910, Kandinsky had not yet made an abstract painting despite all his work. In many books on the history of art, an anecdote from his memoirs is described as follows: He had painted outdoors and returned to his workshop towards evening. He explained that when he opened the door, he saw a painting he had made by himself, leaning upside down against the wall, and he was so impressed by the painting that he could not see any real objects because he could see it vaguely. When he went back to the workshop the next morning, even though the excess light prevented him from experiencing this state of being affected again, he said, "Now I understand." he writes in his writings. Real world things were damaging my painting, and it was time to get rid of the object in the painting. Even though it is always a matter of debate who made the first abstract painting and on what date, he is an ambitious person to prepare nine written sources
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about the first abstract painting he made, and we see the first watercolor abstract painting work dated to 1910 in the Figurebelow.
Figure2.2.7.4. Wassilly Kandinsky, The First Abstract Watercolor, 1910
Source:https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rus_Avangard%C4%B1
Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky was the first painter who did not include any objective image or form related to the real world as a pictorial content in the selection of subjects in his paintings. When we examine his life story, we see that all the spiritual characteristics of the family he was born in are tried to be transferred to him by family members starting from the first years of his childhood. His grandmother was Baltic German. The German folk tales and fairy tales he heard from him and his aunt developed the mystical features of his personality.
Bilingual Kandinsky was fluent in German and French besides his mother tongue, Russian. Although he was at an advanced age to start painting with these features, when his desire to learn to paint became unbearable for him, he resigned from the school where he was a 29-year-old law professor, where he was a very young law professor in a financially secure environment, and started to work at the printing factory in Moscow.
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He did not find the art education environment in Russia sufficient and started a new life to study painting in Germany, leaving his homeland of Russia. He had digital intelligence and enough musical knowledge and talent to play in an orchestra, but his passion for colors and his desire to paint were more important to him than anything else in his life. We see that he uses his mind to understand the artistic realities of the age in which he lives. For every person living in the world, the difficulties brought by the First World War were also for Kandinsky. While Kandinsky was doing his artistic works, he was writing articles describing the stylistic features of his art in the same process. What he wants to convey in his paintings is that the object of art does not have to be the reality that we perceive with our eyesight, on the contrary, an art object can be a spiritual entity that cannot be grasped by the senses. The abstraction in Kandinsky's early paintings is a story in his memoirs and may arise from a mythological tale and story.
In his paintings, nature and objects are deformed, the abstraction of the objects of the world that seems realistic occurs through stages. In the process, object images completely disappear, transform into bionomic shapes, the subject of the painting is no longer the world of objects, but the artist's own inner world.
Expression is always the most effective and personal element of art, artists have always wanted to find and apply their own special form of expression for the subject they are dealing with, but an abstract work of art is not an imitation of nature in the world. The style of expression he offers is that they stop expressing the objects of the real world, which we call naturalistic. Artists always express what they have in their ego world, not what they see with their eyes. The most basic feature of abstract art is that the artist enters his own world and gets rid of the objects of the real world. In this way, each artist finds his own unique world of form.
Although there are traces of the visible world in Kandinsky's early painting works, he states that the artist presents them as his own inner truth in his painting, and for him, the subject is formed as a manifestation, not an abstraction formed by the drawing process. His painting is the first painting against objectification as we know it, against seeing and feeling an object in painting. Kandinsky was also influenced by the words of Nietzsche, one of the most important thinkers of the 19th century, who said that the materialist world should be directed from the external to the self, to the internal.
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Figure2.2.7.5. Wassily Kandinsky, Composition IV, 1910
https://oggito.com/icerikler/wassily-kandinskynin-muzikal-resimleri/66081
In Kandinsky's series of 10 paintings called "Composition", we see warrior Kazakh soldiers carrying spears climbing towards the blue mountains. This painting is a transition from concrete to abstract.
“When we look at the life story of Kandinsky (1866-1944), after a year of studying at the 'local art schools' in Germany, Kandinsky felt competent to set out on his own. Using his extraordinary organizational ability and energy, he founded the Phalanx artists group, which overturned the academic style and the boring theories of the then strong understanding of art. He envisioned himself and like-minded artists as an army fighting against the forces of academic conservatism.” (Howard, 2017:15)
“The reason behind Kandinsky's transformation from student to founder of an art movement in less than four years is; his personal energy, his visible self-confidence, and his inherent authority. The Phalanx was essentially an exhibition group. It aimed to fight against the restrictive, traditional system of art presentations, breaking formal restrictions and gender inequality. Between 1901 and 1904, Kandinsky opened twelve exhibitions for the Phalanx.” (Howard, 2017:16)
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Aiming to expand the opportunities for artists to hold exhibitions, Phalanx soon turned into a private art school with the efforts of Kandinsky. He attracted many more students from schools of more experienced teachers than him. His students found Kandinsky's teaching techniques original and encouraging. The formation played an active role in the Munich art scene until 1904.
“As a proficient cellist and pianist, Kandinsky followed closely the musical developments in Munich. He discovered that music evoked dramatic responses in him, providing him with both a majestic escape and a visual stimulus. He described music as the best teacher, and in one of his most famous quotes he said: Colors are the keyboard, the eyes are the hammer, the soul is the piano with its dozens of strings, and the artist is the hand playing the piano by touching the keys to create vibrations in the soul. When he listened to Wagner's Lohengrin, which was a modern piece for its time, in 1897, he said, "I saw all the colors in my mind, they were lined up before my eyes. The wild, almost crazy lines stretched out before me… Wagner painted 'my watch' with music.” (Howard, 2017:19)
He started engraving works with the effects of music. The subject of his engravings is music-themed. As Kandinsky mentioned in his diary where he kept his memories in all his works, he wrote that he was looking for a new universal language of art and that if God helped, he could find this language. During his lifetime, Kandinsky became interested in the theosophist view, which tried to channel all known religions connected to mysticism, which was developed against materialist ideas, into a common system, with the development of industrialization and the progress in science, not only in Paris but also throughout the world. Another step of liberation for Kandinsky was writing. Kandinsky was very impressed with the idea of splitting the atom, which is one of the scientific developments, “Nothing is certain in the material world.” he wrote.
“As his writing work evolved, Kandinsky began to portray the artist as a prophet who would pull humanity out of the darkness of ignorance to the glory of pure truth. Kandinsky wrote On Spiritualism in Art, his thoughts nearly bestselling and one of the most influential art theory books ever written. The book was a logical and easy-to-
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understand exploration of abstraction. Although other artists pursue similar ideas in their own art, Kandinsky is the one who realizes all the meanings of these thoughts and explains them in a book.” (Howard, 2017:33)
The book titled On Spiritualism in Art was translated into Turkish as On Spiritualism in Art and published. He wrote that he collected the writing notes that created the book in ten years and created a book with rich content. “This movement within the truth is very complex, what is not true can turn into truth, what is true may turn into what is not true, some pieces can fall out like a nut shell, time can soften this shell; therefore, some confuse the shell with the hazelnut, ascribing the life of the hazelnut to the shell; While most are fighting over the shell, the nut rolls off.” (From Kandinsky's On Spiritualism in Art).” (Howard, 2017:31)
“In the days that had just ended at the beginning of the 20th century and marked the 19th century, and that apparently gave birth to the great triumph of matter, the 'new' first elements of the mental environment that would have given, even already given the necessary nourishment for the emergence of spirituality, were almost imperceptibly formed.
In a foreword by Marc and Kandinsky they stated: “A great age is beginning, and has already begun: the emerging tendency to re-find the soul-spiritual 'awakening' and 'balance' is an inevitable necessity to produce new products in the spiritual-spiritual field, and thus the first flowers bloom.” (Eroğlu, 2014:39)
In Kandinsky's background for this characterization of the age of spirituality, there was the following dimension of knowledge: Under a proposition of hidden wisdom, hidden wisdom is an indisputable reality for anyone who comprehends it, to the extent that it does not require proof of the existence of such knowledge. Such a hidden wisdom was undoubtedly another invaluable value for a Kandinsky who was strongly fed with fairy tales, stories, art history, nostalgia.” (Eroğlu,2014:40)
Kandinsky explains in his explanations that every painting is born for him technically, just like the birth of a new cosmos. Kandinsky has always paired forms and colors with his beloved musical art, visualizing musical tones and vibrations as paintings. Colors are not only a pictorial element for Kandinsky, but also have an effect that people can convey all kinds of knowledge and life experiences they have.
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“Kandinsky knows that a secret sage does not need to show evidence when appealing to those who have developed a "higher mind" like himself. The whole skeleton of Kandinsky's art consists of such a thought. The power to hear and understand the truth is inherent in every human being. It turns first to the understanding that awaits awakening in every healthy soul.” (Eroğlu, 2008:40)
“To understand Kandinsky's perception of Spirituality-Spirituality is to understand Steiner and Goethe well. “Man is a citizen of three worlds: He belongs to the world he perceives with his body. With his soul, he creates his own world. With his spirit, a world above the other two becomes clear.” Art, literature, and even the experimental sciences, to varying degrees, found themselves oriented towards this 'new spiritual age'; but this trend is inevitable for almost every field.” (Eroğlu, 2008:41)
Figure2.2.7.6. Wassily KANDINSKY, Composition, VII, 1913
Source. https://oggito.com/icerikler/wassily-kandinskynin-muzikal-resimleri/66081
Kandinsky's painting "Composition VII" is considered one of the most important works of the 20th century. He began working on this painting in 1913, when he lived in Munich, Germany. It is known that Kandinsky made more than 30 pencil and oil paint
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sketches for this painting, where everything seems to be drawn randomly. Out of his interest and love for music, he chose the names of his paintings from musical expressions. There are no references to the natural world in this painting. It is a large-sized abstract painting in which Kandinsky's bold lines and many colors are used in a balanced distribution.
Freedom and maturity began to be seen in Kandinsky's paintings from 1910. He studied his paintings, which he called impression, composition or improvisation. The paintings, called Impressions, still had some natural influences. The improvised ones were their own inner experiences. He had finished and submitted for exhibition his first large, completely abstract painting, which he called Composition 5, which the Munich New Artists Association (NKVM) had refused to exhibit. After this situation, they decided to form a new group with his close friend Franz Marc. The Blue Horseman group was formed.
“When the First World War was declared in 1914, Kandinsky had to leave Munich because he was a Russian citizen. He moved to Odessa, where he would arrive on 12 December 1914, through the Balkans, thus the Moscow years began. Since Kandinsky did not break his ties with his friendly circle in Russia, it was a great chance for him to continue their relationship. Since 1902 he had been publishing articles in "Welt der Kunst", a Petersburgh magazine, and sending news to the magazine through exhibition brochures in Munich. He especially cared about the relationship he established with the symbolist painters association called Blue Rose, he had common views with the artists of this association.” (Eroğlu, 2008: 69)
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Figure2.2.7.7. Wassily Kandinsky,1911, Impression, III Concert, O.O.C., Lenbachhaus and Kunstbau Municipal Gallery, Munich
Source:https://www.gzt.com/skyroad/muzigin-ressami-ve-soyut-resmin-babasi-wassily-kandinsky-3549702.
He would write that he evaluated the Russian revolution of 1917 from his own perspective. The developments were not negative at first, he carried out very good works with the fame of his previous works. “The Royal Academy of Plastic Arts was reopened under the name 'WCHUTEMAS Institute', it had been the school where Malewich and Pevsner taught, besides Kandinsky, was involved in fine arts education, museum reforms and the opening of village museums. He opened his second and last exhibition. The following story in this exhibition is mentioned in almost all Kandinsky biographies: Three villagers from the countryside were shocked by the exhibition and made the following emphasis for the artist's paintings; 'of course we don't understand anything, but they make us feel as if we are in a church'." (Eroğlu.2014:71)
In 1922, Bolshevik pressures against art increased in Russia and these pressures came to an end with the dominance of socialist reality. Art, as a means of promotion of the state, came under the service of ideology. Kandinsky's geometric paintings showed more structural differences than his contemporaries' constructive artists. His words
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confirm the aforementioned judgment: 'The meeting of the angle of a triangle with a circle is as impressive as the meeting of Adam's finger and God's finger by Michelangelo.'” (Eroğlu.2014:71)
Kandinsky decides to leave Russia with the desire to get away from the increasingly difficult material and spiritual conditions in Russia, he and his wife come to Almanya to Berlin, his friends died in the war, some of them left Germany. Although they were alone in Berlin before, Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus. He accepted the offer when he offered to teach in Weimar, thus Kandinsky's Bauhaus period began. The Bauhaus School of Architecture, Arts and Crafts (1919-1932) also resisted the established fine art system, trying to reunite art and craft and re-establish the social purpose of art.
Figure2.2.7. 8. Wassily Kandinsky, in Gray, 1919
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vassily_Kandinsky,_1919_-_In_Grey.jpg
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Figure2.2.7. 9. Wassily Kandinsky, Composition X, 1939
https://oggito.com/icerikler/wassily-kandinskynin-muzikal-resimleri/66081
Figure2.2.7.10. Kandinsky, Several Circles, 1926
https://oggito.com/icerikler/wassily-kandinskynin-muzikal-resimleri/66081
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In the pictorial compositions we see in Pictures 9 and 10, we see an abstraction process developed over time. In the painting titled Composition 9, Kandinsky used biomorph forms and reached the highest level in non-objective pictorial abstraction with this painting. His work named several circles is also dated to 1926. Using the circle form on a black background, Kandinsky enriched the language of painting with his composition reminding the planets in space and emptiness.
Bauhaus was founded in Wiemar, Germany in 1919 by Walter Gropius, and was named after the Bahütte, the stonemasons' guild in the Middle Ages. Gropius explained his purpose in the manifesto he wrote for the new school in 1919:
“Architects, sculptors, painters, we must all return to crafts. There is essentially no difference between the artist and the craftsman”. The artist is a great craftsman, and in rare moments of inspiration, when his will cannot control, by God's grace his work can take the form of art. But every artist must be proficient in his craft. This is one of the sources of creative imagination. Let's set up a new craftsmen's guild, without class distinctions that form an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist. Let's work together to build a new future.” Gropius' primary goal was not to train master craftsmen, but to bring art, craft and technology together in the education of designers and architects.” (Shiner, 2004:360,361)
“Kandinsky took various methods that can be used in painting education in the Bauhaus process from the 'Point, Line and Plan' studies. These studies were published in the Bauhaus magazine in 1926: In this article, it was mentioned that there could be two basic methods in painting teaching. The first of these is “Painting is treated as an absolute end, which means educating the student to become a painter. The student receives the necessary information that can be given by education at school and does not need to go beyond the boundaries of the picture. Secondly, “Painting is treated as a power that contributes to the arrangement, which means directing the student towards a synthesis product perception beyond the boundaries of painting, provided that the rules are respected. This second method formed the basis of Bauhaus painting education. In this period, the Bauhaus came under the influence of the universal geometric language with the rising influences of the constructivists and supremacists (1923-1925). Item’s student Laszlo Mohaly-Nagy turns the preparatory class into a
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constructive visual form lesson. Kandinsky explained to his students very clearly and precisely that one cannot be creative without adopting the basic principles of visual art. (Eroğlu, 2014:75)
“The Bauhaus is moved from Weimar to Dessau due to various pressures. Conditions are better, financial funds are created for masters to open their own workshops and for classrooms. The Paul Klee and Kandinsky families live next door to each other. In order to continue their art more effectively, they both demand that Gropius open free painting courses. Gropius accepts this without hesitation. Max Bill, who watches these free courses, says: “He was very neutral in his thoughts and I took the ones that suited me among them.” (Eroğlu, 2014:79)
In the last years of the Bauhaus, between 1928 and 1930, the growing differences in aesthetic understanding between the painters at the school turned into an open war. Students begin to experience differences in their thoughts, eventually the administration appointed Architect Mies van der Rohe as the manager in 1930 and meticulously dealt with the ideologies of the school. As a result, the Bauhaus school takes on the identity of a purely architectural school, which has nothing to do with the aims of Gropius, Kandinsky and Klee.” (Eroğlu, 2014:79)
“When we compare the works produced by the Constructivism movement in Russia in the 1920s and the Bauhaus School in Germany, it is possible to find common points in terms of production processes, materials and geometric formalism, even though they were produced under different conditions. However, perhaps the main affinity lies in the worldview of both the artists who formed the Russian constructivism and those who came together around the Bauhaus and sought to establish a new artistic language: These artists, who saw the construction of a new world as a necessity, gradually turned to design, and in a process where they were increasingly turning to design, they used art outside of its usual function, to create a new artistic language. They began to think of it as a phenomenon that had to make sense on some ground.” (Antmen, 2016:103)
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“Besides, the Bauhaus philosophy was founded on the idea of creating 'useful' living spaces for a large segment, instead of producing 'luxury' for a small number of people.'
"In this sense, although Russian constructivism was nourished by the dysfunctional artistic approaches of Malevich and Picasso, since it developed under the leadership of those who believed in the new society to be established with the 1917 revolution, it is essentially "the function that determines the form." shaped by thought. The Bauhaus was closed in 1933 due to the pressure of the Nazi party, and teachers and artists immigrated to Europe and later to America. (Özer, 2009:27)
“As a result of the closing of the Bauhaus and the negative thoughts of the administration against abstract art in Germany, Kandinsky left Germany with his wife and went to Toulon, France. Marcel Duchamp becomes their biggest assistant. In 1934, the move takes place and the artist's Paris years begin. During the war years, Kandinsky kept his paintings smaller and wrote about art. He meets Andre Breton and thus reaches Surrealism and other Surrealist artists. Kandinsky never forgets the differences of opinion between himself and the Surrealists. While Surrealists unconsciously work with psychoanalytic explanations and methods that work the subconscious mind, Kandinsky's inner truth leads him to listen to his inner voice and intuition. As it is known, the driving force of his artistic creativity from his early years has been this "inner tone/sound issue, that is, his intuitive understanding of work." (Eroğlu, 2014:89)
Kandinsky did not accept any of the invitations to travel, including the USA, except for the sick visit of Klee, who lived in Switzerland until his death in 1944. He never left France. “Of all the cities I know, the two cities I feel something about are Moscow and Paris.” he said. The artist, who lived a full nomadic life throughout his life, accepted the polyphony of every concept in the world, and considered all the facts with their contrasts. His struggle was that man should be driven by emotion rather than knowledge. He understood the contrasts in life, and these contrasts took place in his art as color tone form.
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The whole purpose of Kandinsky was to dissolve all the differences thought to belong to humanity into a whole and to see and show them as a whole. In his painting journey to abstraction, he created a visual version of sounds in his paintings called Improvisation. What he wants to convey is “Inner voices can be told to the viewer only if there is no object in the painting.” said He too, without opposing his inner voice; Although the forms and painting style changed over time, he became one of the most important artists of the 20th century with his paintings known as lyric abstract and his paintings from the Paris period.
2.2.8. Suprematism “Suprematism is defined as an understanding of painting consisting of geometric shapes adopted in 1913 under the leadership of Kazimir Malevich. Suprematism, which carries the tendency of abstraction to the extreme with the use of geometric images, takes painting to the (official) zero point by purifying it from non-painting elements. The Figurethat emerges at such a point is shaped as a rectangle on a plain surface as a geometric image. Expressing creations without ideas and content, Suprematism expresses a new field of study for art, the suprema (upper, uppermost) field.” (Clark, 1997:102)
“Malevich’s work, which we can describe today, a century later, as radical abstract icons, aimed to evoke a world that is both spiritual and modern and functional.” (Rosenthal, 2019:37)
“Malevich's lectures at the People's Art School had a profound effect on his students. The UNOVIS (Approving New Art) group founded by his students aimed to integrate Suprematism into all areas of life.” (SSM, 2019:92)
"They say, 'We are calling out to everyone who produces something useful, so that together under the common banner of Unovis, we can equip the world with clothes in a new form and purpose.' Then they addressed not only artists but also craftsmen. UNOVIS members have created new city and new lifestyle fantasies. They created three-dimensional Suprematist architectural models, which they called the Arkitekton,
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in which there were residential complexes that could fly through the air and go into space.” (SSM,2019:93,94)
“The Suprematists discount the dialectical relationship between art, which is a part of life, and life in favor of art. They reject the idea of progress and historicity and position art above everything else as an autonomous field that has existed and continues to exist since time immemorial. No matter how historicity is denied in Suprematism, there is a reunification of Hegel's absolutism with itself in the unification of fragmented life. (Güven, 2016:4)
The reason why Malevich named the movement he founded "Suprematism" is that he wanted to indicate the superiority, greatness, divinity of the new philosophy of abstract art, and that it is at the highest limit. Suprematism reveals pure abstraction, especially the abstraction of geometry. In pure abstraction there is no recognizable object on the canvas. Abstract painting is one that takes its content originating from the world from this world and at the same time wishes and claims to express the essence of this world. In Malevich's understanding of painting, every form of the real world essentially participates in abstraction, disappears into nothingness; Suprematism is the end of art. Malevich “In our workshops, pictures are no longer drawn, the forms that life needs are built.” he was saying. In these discourses, the dream of utopia is very dominant, he thought that art would put an end to all kinds of alienation between people and societies, and would be the language of form that could transform the world by making life poetic. According to Malevich, “Suprematism is a new world order, perhaps an order to be established on another planet.”
Kazimir Malevich was born in 1878 near Kiev, in what is now Ukraine. “Malevich settled in the village of Parhomovka, located between Kiev and Kursk, around 1890. “Malevich watched the villagers paint here; He helped them to cover the floors of their houses with clay, to paint motifs on their stoves and to decorate their handicrafts. Factors such as the fact that the artist, who worked with painters among his father's friends, started to work as a draftsman in the same workplace with his father in order to earn the necessary money for his Moscow education, and the effect of the living conditions of his geography, were factors in his starting painting with the understanding of impressionism. (Yener, 2006:41).
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“The artist, who is known to have moved to Moscow after 1904, studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in the workshop of Fedor Rerberg; It is known that he participated in exhibitions with Vladimir Tatlin and followed the works of the avant-garde painters of the period, Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov. At this time, it is thought that the artist progressed under the influence of cubism and with an understanding of painting close to the abstractionist approach. In Russia after the 1905 Revolution, Malevich and some of his contemporary Russian artists followed the developments in the field of visual arts, as well as all kinds of scientific, intellectual and social developments in Europe, without losing their currency, through the publications that reached their homeland and the translated translations. Familiar with and fascinated by the intricacies of his art and the icon culture, Malevich had the opportunity to observe the artistic and scientific developments taking place in Europe at that time.” (Yılmaz and Ödekan, 2009:43).
The first reductionist tendencies in contemporary painting in the 20th century begin with Malevich's paintings. The main idea on the canvas is abstract; while seeking dynamism, movement and variability, he turns to the abstract. The reality he wants to shape on the canvas is to show the face of unlimited space and the world beyond matter. It tries to bring a new order to the world that surrounds man with forms and colors. Intuition is the greatest helper, and it takes people to zero form with the disappearance of the objects of the abstract universe that cannot be seen but felt. He separates art from the past with his painting works. For him, leaving the images of the realist world is opening up to a different universe and attaining freedom.
During his time away from painting, Malevich was also reading the articles written by his contemporary Russian philosophers and writing articles himself. He knew the ideas of philosopher thinkers such as Bergson, Heidegger, Kant, and Schopenhauer very well and read their writings. In Malevich's research on form, the influence of his contemporary H. Wölflin is also seen very intensely. His thoughts on the liberation of forms from the meanings of words also remind us of the structuralist linguist Saussure, who is associated with cubism.
During his lifetime, Malevich was influenced by the theosophical thoughts like his colleague Kandinsky, as well as by the metaphysical thoughts of Plato and the mathematics of Pythagoras, through the wide literary circle around him. The
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explanation of reality presented by Plato does not correspond to the explanation of the objects in the world we see, its pure forms belonging to the world of ideas correspond to the geometry of the objective world. Geometric shapes can be explained the way of reason. Nietzsche's nothingness and zero effect, where belief in reason and god disappears, everything loses its meaning and ends in nihilism, on Malevich's thoughts affecting his work. The black square is 'zero form'. For Malevich, the whole world is reduced to geometric forms. Geometric forms are the new visual form of contemporary painting and sculpture.
“Malevich designed the stage and costumes; Although the decor and clothing sketches he drew for the work "Victory Against the Sun" in the Cub-futurist Opera style, whose theme is known to be the victory of technology over nature and modern man against the sun, have cubist features; The fact that one of the background curtains he has prepared is in the form of a square divided horizontally into black and white areas, is considered as the factor that led the artist to turn to the understanding of art he called 'Suprematism', according to his own explanations. (Lynton, 2015:79)
“Malevich changes the meaning of painting within the new framework of the 1917 Revolution. Malevich introduces Suprematism to symbolize a sudden break in history, the destruction of the traditional order, the birth of the future out of the revolution.” (Clark, 1997:89)
“While traditional art staticizes the human mind; Suprematism creates a dynamic effect on the senses of the audience, a sudden enlightenment, a sudden change in perception. Expressing a world without content, suprematism treats contentlessness as nothingness and offers the experience of contentlessness. (Tunalı, 1989:182)
“In terms of contentlessness, since the rejection of the world of objects does not mean that art is without content, the content of art becomes art itself; instead of the idea of anything else, only the idea of art appears in the work as art. In the sense of the contentlessness that Suprematism aims to achieve, nothingness appears as the visualization of the will to escape from relativism. Based on the view that the essence of all appearances is not in the usefulness of the ends, Suprematism reveals the understanding of the work that is neither practical nor aesthetically useful; art reaches
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the realm outside practical life: universal reality. The universal reality is visualized in Malevich's black square on a plain white surface.” (Tunalı, 1989: 187)
“This movement, in which nothingness is brought to the fore, is both quite different from the disciplines that the audience was accustomed to until then, and is a revolutionary rebellion that takes place in the memories with its pure language. The work created by Malevich by placing white forms on a white canvas in 1918 brought suprematism to the dimension of invisibility and incorporeality.” (Giderer, 2003:117)
Let's look at Malevich's own text: “In 1913, which fully describes the logic of Suprematism, in my desperate attempt to free art from the unnecessary weight of objectivity, I took refuge in the square format and displayed an icon showing a black square on a white field, and the critics and society sighed: 'Everything we love. disappeared: we are in a desert… There is a black square on a white background before us!' Reality no longer has counterparts, no conceptual representations, nothing but the desert; but the desert is filled with the spirit of pervasive, non-objective sensibility.” (Bonfand, 1994:26)
“Its own expression in its form emphasizes the importance of non-objective sensibility. The black square on the white field is the first expression of non-objective sensitivity: square = sensitivity, white space = outside of this sensitivity 'Nothing' Art moves towards the representation of non-objectivity, arrives in a desert, where nothing is more knowable than sensitivity.” (Bonfand, 1994:27)
“Art, which presents the interpretation of natural forms by moving from nature, now goes beyond the world of objects by turning to intangible existence. Suprematism no longer has any interest in objects, in things.” (Harrison, Wood, 2015:199)
“In Suprematism, meaning is always hidden behind the image. Malevich's black square, which is the expression of man's superiority over the complexity of his empirical world, means the rejection of the world of appearance, since it is not found in nature; in his own words:
“Objects vanished like smoke, for the good of the new art.
The square is not the form of the unconscious, it is the creation of the intuitive mind.
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It is the new face of art. Kare is alive, he is a noble child.
Square is the first step of pure creation in art.
Before that, there was only naive distortions and imitation of nature.”
(Harrison, Wood, 2015:209)
According to Malevich, abstract painting was the painting that showed the real reality, which is beyond the senses. Malevich did not think that paintings reflecting the imitation of nature in which people live, feel and see with their own eyes are the subject of art. While painting the black square on white, he aimed to liberate the consciousness level of all his viewers in a universal sense, rather than creating a new language in terms of aesthetics.
The canvas painting named “Black Square” is quite plain and simple, completed with a square shape painted in black on a white background. The Figureis indicative of pure emotional intensity. It creates a perception superiority in the audience. It is based on a feeling of “nothingness”. It is known as the "zero point" of the painting and it contains spiritual values at its core. (Giderer, 2003: 116)
“After this work of the artist, different versions of the work with different colors are also seen. The essence of this movement, in which square, circle, rectangle and cross shapes are located on the basis of Suprematism; Doing nothing about the object, emphasizing that the work of art can exist even without objects, abstracting art from serving elements such as the state, religion, and politics, and producing a work as an entity that reflects spirituality. (Giderer, 2003:116)
“A square that is empty because it does not contain images from nature is not actually an empty square; It is filled with the absence of the object, loaded with meaning. Geometric forms express the superiority of the intellectual over the objective. Since the intellectual removes the boundaries between inner and outer space, the square becomes a door to infinity; eternity is revealed. By choosing the square form as the indicator of the eternal and the eternal, which does not exist in the temporary and changeable world, Malevich transfers the theosophical discourse to the canvas.” (Ondin, 2009:2)
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Figure2.2.18.11. Kazimir Malevich, Black Square,1913/1915,80x80 cm O.O.C., State Russian Museum,St Petersburg.first version 1915.last version 1920
Source:https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimir_Malevi%C3%A7#/media/Dosya:Malevich.black-square.jpg
“Another factor underlying Malevich's paintings such as 'The Black Square' is the idea of the fourth dimension. The fourth dimension, which was also influential in the early periods of Cubism, became a topic discussed in Russia through the books written by the philosopher Peter Uspensky (1878-1974). The fourth dimension, which expresses infinity as space itself in cubism, is also related to infinity in Suprematism. The fourth dimension, which refers to the questioning of the perception of the object, is considered as the state of consciousness that enables the spirit to comprehend its own world in terms of Russian mystical thought. To grasp the spirit's own world is to turn to the inner; is to question the subject.” (Öndin, 2009,53)
Malevich's most radical work is generally considered to be White on White, dating to 1918. Indeed, this work symbolizes the end of visuality because it cannot be read or selected. If the black square represents economy and the white square represents purity,
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the red square is the sign of revolution. Starting in 1916, Malevich's friends followed in the footsteps of Exter, Popova, Udhaldsova, Kliun, Razonova, Magaril, Chasnik, Malevich and worked to develop innovative understandings of suprematism.
Figure2.2.8.12.Kazimir Malevich White on White, Suprematist Composition Date: 1918, Original Size: 79.4 x 79.4 cm, Location: Museum of Modern Art New York.
Source:https://www.istanbulsanatevi.com/sanatcilar/soyadi-m/malevich- kazimir/kazimir- malevich-beyaza-beyaz-suprematist-kompozisyon/
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Figure2.2.8.13.Kazimir MALEVICH,Red on White,1915,TUYB,53x53,1918,New York Museum of Modern Art Russian State Museum,St Petersburgh,Russia
Source:https://www.istanbulsanatevi.com/category/sanatcilar/soyadi-/malevich-kazimir/ Figure2.2.8.14. Kazimir Malevich Suprematist Composition Airport Date: 1915, Original Size: 58.1 x 48.3 cm, Location: Museum of Modern Art New York. canvas painting (on painting canvas… Source:https://www.istanbulsanatevi.com/category/sanatcilar/soyadi-m/malevich-kazimir/
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Figure2.2.8.15. Kazimir Malevich Black Circle Date: 1913 Original Size: 105.5 x 105.5 cm Location: State Russian Museum St. Petersburg
Source:https://www.istanbulsanatevi.com/category/sanatcilar/soyadi-m/malevich- kazimir/ Figure2.2.8.16.Kazimir Malevich Supremus No 56 Date: 1916 Original Size: 80.5 x 71 cm Location: State Russian Museum St. Petersburg Source:https://www.istanbulsanatevi.com/category/sanatcilar/soyadi-m/malevich-kazimir/
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Figure2.2.8.17.Kazimir Malevich,Suprematism,1917,80x80,tuit,LunatscharskiMuseum, Krasnodar
Source:https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimir_Malevi%C3%A7#/media/Dosya:Supremus_55_(Malevich,_1916).jpghttps://upload.
“The first Suprematist paintings came as a shock when they were shown at the “Last Futurist Painting Exhibition 0.10” held in St. Petersburg in December 1915. Malevich hung the first suprematist archetype, the Black Square, consisting of black rectangles on a white background and now in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, near the ceiling in the corner between the two walls of the hall. His official 'Black Square', which he called the 'Zero Form', has been interpreted as a 'Figureof (not) something'. On the other hand, it created anger rather than astonishment in the audience, who could not see anything from the past.” (SSM, Exhibition Catalogue, 2018:92)
“This exhibition is also the first event in the history of art to present an abstract art system. ‘Suprematism heralds the end of the ancient tradition of European art. This tradition is the assimilation and adaptation of the world to a symbolic order through some visual techniques and nominal codes of representation. (Artun, 2015:51-52)
“As Malevich prepared to introduce suprematism, many avant-garde artists appealed to his friends; his friends embraced the artist's undisclosed style and in the '0,10'
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exhibition; Ivan Kluin, Mikhail Menkhov, Ivan Puni, Ksenia Bogustlavskaia, Olga Rozanova, Alexandra Exter, Vera Pastel, Lyubov Popova and Nadezhda Udhaldsova also exhibited their non-objective compositions.” (SSM, Exhibition Catalogue, 2018:93)
Figure2.2.8.18. 1915 Petrogard.0.10.Futurist Painting Exhibition
Source:https://www.e-skop.com/skopbulten/rus-avangardi-rus-avangardinin-devrimcisi-malevic-
"Malevich hung other compositions of colorful geometric shapes at various heights under his 'Black Square' work." (SSM, Kübo -Futurizm, 2018:92)
“Malevich called his artistic innovation suprematism, based on the Latin word supremus, meaning superiority, domination. The placement of the black square at the corner where the two walls meet was intended as an iconoclastic effect to create a perception of destroying all ties with tradition, dedicated to the holy corner in the Orthodox Christian home.” (SSM, Suprematist and non-objective art, 2018:92)
“In 1916, under the leadership of Malevich, the core of the 'Supremus' group was formed. All of the artists made experimental works related to the principles of suprematism, but over time it turned into a unique style for each artist, and the group
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disbanded in 1918. Among the artists working in Suprematism were Vasily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Kliment Redko (1897-1956), Evgenia Magaril (1902-1987) and Ilia Chashnik (1902-1929). (SSM, Exhibition Catalogue, 2018:93)
“For Malevich, suprematism is the end of art. ‘Art will be replaced by building life. ‘In our workshops, pictures are no longer drawn, but forms of life are constructed.’ Malevich's most radical work is generally considered to be White on White, 1918. Indeed, this work symbolizes the end of visuality. Because it is not possible to read or choose.” (SSM, Tsantsanoglou, 2019:33)
“This new and aesthetic approach that Malevich presented to art life under the name of Suprematism expressed the superiority of color and form among all the other technical components of the painting, the description of the invisible part of the world, its non-objectivity, the zero point of the painting. Therefore, Suprematism created a new way of thinking. Malevich challenged religion as well as knowledge from the visible world.” (SSM, Tsantsanoglou,2019:33)
Malevich and many of his friends also design items that can be used in daily life: table, chair, teapot or fabric designs. His students, who were not satisfied with these, were İlya Çaşnik, Nikolay Suyetin, Lazar Khidikel; they try to bring a new perspective to architecture from suprematism. Malevich says that since there is a certain system of suprematism, he definitely saw the experiences to be lived in architecture in suprematism. It is known that Malevich's work was influenced by the architectural scholar Vitruvius and Leon Battista Alberti, who wrote On the Art of Building of the renaissance, they turned mathematical rhythm into a visual tool, Malevich did this too, and then Malevich's architectural and urban designs, the pilot's house called Planit, made of plaster or wooden models make “architectons”. These works, consisting of squares or cubes, are full of new ideas that would pioneer many of the important architects of the second half of the 20th century.
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Figure2.2.8.19. Ivan Kliun, Non-Objective Composition 1920, Watercolor Gouache on Paper, 17.6x13,3cm, State Museum of Contemporary Art, Costakis Collection.280.80-326
Source: https://tr.pinterest.com/shahramzahedi50/ivan-kliun-russian-1870-943/
Figure2.2.8.20. Nazdezhda Udhaldsova, Early 1930s Watercolor and Gouache on Paper
Source:https://www.google.com/search?q=RUS+Ressam+Nadezhda+Udhaldsova,1930%E2%80%99&sxsrfhttps://
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Figure2.2.8.21.Olga Razonova,Decorative composition,1916,Watercolor and gouache on paper
Source: sssjournal.com/Makaleler/591306008_10_5-46.ID1792_Yayan&İnanç_5485-5505.pdf
Figure2.2.8.22.Alexandra Exter, 1922, 66×62 cm Around 1916, O.O.C.
Source: sssjournal.com/Makaleler/591306008_10_5-46.ID1792_Yayan&İnanç_5485-5505.pdf
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Figure2.2.8.23. Ivan Kliun, Suprematist Color and Form, 1921
Source: sssjournal.com/Makaleler/591306008_10_5-46.ID1792_Yayan&İnanç_5485-5505.pdf
Figure2.2.8.24. Ilia Chashnik- Suprematist Cross, 1923- Figure2.2.8.25. Evgenia Magaril-1920
Watercolor and Gouache on Paper Oil Painting on Canvas
Source:sssjournal.com/Makaleler/591306008_10_5-46.ID1792_Yayan&İnanç_5485-5505.pdf -5505.pdf
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Lissitzki must have been the most advanced in understanding the suprematist utopias as an ontology of art after the 1917 Russian Bolshevik Revolution in the Suprematism group. In his work on Suprematism in Rebuilding the World, published in 1920, he writes:
“For us, suprematism does not mean the recognition of an absolute form that is part of an already completed universal system. On the contrary, before us for the first time stands the plan of a new world that has never been experienced in its purest form, its emblem stands. This world, which is in the first stage of its establishment, springs from our inner being. The square of Suprematism is therefore considered a beacon.” (Artun, 2015:75)
"Lissitzki's 'Words on the Conquest of Art', published in 1922, completes those two years ago: "Yes, the path of the peinture culture continued until it reached the square. But on the other hand, a new culture bears its fruits. Yes, we salute the brave people who throw themselves into dark abysses to resurrect the dead in a new form. Yes, the line of art has steadily regressed towards '0'… 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0.” (Artun, 2015:76)
“However, at the other extreme, a new line begins: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… Lissitzki says: The 'Black Square', which is the '0' point of the form, put an end to the history of art and culture that had been going on all along. Now a new history, a new world begins from scratch. The art of this new world is PROUN. After all, PROUN is an acronym derived from the 'Verification of the New Project'. PROUN symbolizes the new values of science and technology as well as society; it is a physical rather than an aesthetic event; It is an articulation of space, energy and forces.” (Artun, 2015:76)
“Lissitzki states that PROUN is “a stop between painting and architecture”. This means; its best read in PROUN Rooms. According to him, these rooms are 'stages' that will awaken the power of changing the outside world in the audience. It is not an exhibition space limited by some walls on which works are hung, but an atmosphere of transformations, a microcosm.” (Artun, 2015:79)
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Figure2.2.8.26. El Lissitzky "The Proun's Room", 1923
Source: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.e-skop.com%2Fskopbulten%2Fdadanin-100-yili-merz-dergisi-dada-de-stijl-konstruktivizm-ittifaki%2F3183&psig=AOvVaw0MwXypBYkvSECKU8efpC-
In El Lissitzky's work 'The Proun's Room', the artist's not only balance of geometric structures with each other, but also the balance of these forms with space is in question. The artist, who applies his work according to the spatial relationship, also pays attention to the unity of meaning and form.” (Artun, 2015:79)
“The Proun Room, which is considered the most important work of El Lissitzky, is one of the first examples of contemporary art styles with its 'Space and Three-Dimensional Geometric Features of the Installation'.” (Erden,2016;210)
“Lissitzkiy also applies the Suprematist PROUN art to graphic design. His most compelling work in graphics is The Tale of Two Squares (1920-1922), which he designed to evoke in children the illusion of a suprematist utopia. In 1922, El Lissitzkiy left Russia for Germany. The artist, who helped organize the First Russian Art Exhibition in Berlin, which also featured Suprematist works, also designed the cover of the exhibition's catalogue. Connecting with the De Stijl movement in the Netherlands
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and the Bauhaus in Germany, the artist played a leading role in the spread of the movement outside of Russia.” (Erden, 2016;210)
Figure2.2.8.27. El Lissitzky The Tale of Two Squares, 1920-1922
Source:https://www.google.com/search?q=iki+karenin+%C3%B6yk%C3%BCs%C3%BC+El+Lissitzky&sxsrf=ALeKk009FJH6WajnUqlg70tMNcZ26MOgKw:1622397111559&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=V1R-usdzpP5LYM%252CkIAhtCuLy_xQQM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kToorxsjyHPf7rMRy950mwlhiCAGA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiPhpOc_PHwAhWFg_0HHVaQAmAQ9QF6BAgMEAE#imgrc=Anughf05mOfGIM
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2.2.9. Constructivism
“Constructivism art movement emerged in Moscow in the new social conditions shaped after the 1917 Revolution in Russia. The trend shaped by the dynamism of artists such as Vlademir Tatlin (1885-1953), Naum Gabo (1890-1977), Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956), EL Lissitzky (1890-1941) aimed to reflect the ideal order to be formed by the communist understanding into the field of art. However, the aim of the artists was to convey the principles of the revolution to the public through art. This principle of 'art for the people' forced artists to produce in more than one field.” (Erden, 2016:2010)
“These artists aimed to contribute to the formation of the material culture of the period and the future society by combining art with technology in order to produce mass production objects and useful structures in the context of industrialization of the New Economic Policy declared by Lenin in the 1921 Revolution. The task of the 'Constructivist' group has been the 'Communist Expression of Material Construction'." (SSM, Constructivism, 2018: 119).
“When the abstract aesthetic understanding of avant-garde art could not find an important response in society, avant-garde art showed itself with a new identity with a Constructivist understanding. Constructivists, under the leadership of Vladimir Tatlin, generally used contemporary materials and adopted the understanding of geometric composition.” (Tanyılmaz, 2016:98).
“Artists working with a constructivist approach have focused their work on fields such as science, mechanics, geometry, and physics in order to combine design with production, especially in the field of architecture and many other fields. Constructivists, who made an effort to glorify industrial materials and techniques, were influential in the development of 'Modern Architecture' with their designs. In this process, their relations with materials such as canvas and oil painting, which are traditional tools for artists, have decreased considerably. The ultimate goal for artists has been to reconcile art with revolution and to give a productive identity. As a result of the application of constructivism to daily mass production objects, it has laid the foundations of contemporary design, which is called the 'art of production'. (Tsantsanoglou, 2018:34)
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“Constructivists, who see art as a part of life, perceive and understand art as an entity on its own, not as an imitation, and have adopted the modern society's finding a place in artistic expression, just like the futurists.” (Zeybek, 2017:44)
“Constructivism, in which geometric forms are used as a pictorial element, deals with movement, time and technology elements in the work. Acting with the idea of building, the artists gave importance to the new searches of the age and scientific principles and preferred collective production shaped according to social needs instead of the personal style and expression of the creative individual. The concept of 'movement', in which geometric forms are frequently used with the logic of construction based on a structuralist quality, lost its effectiveness after the 1920s, when the Soviet ideology used naturalist and traditional art forms as a propaganda tool. (Zeybek, 2017:45)
“There can be similarities between Constructivism and the Bauhaus School. Both embodied a public utopia. Instead of individual expression, there was an objective approach to society. The belief that something can be changed in society through art was at the root of both.” (Erden,2016:211)
In America, in 1933, a project was created to support artists. The aim of this event, which was held under the name of the Federal Art Project, was to ensure that works aimed at integrating art with the daily life of the society, which was the dream of Russian constructivists, were carried out. There was no limitation of the subject technical style of the artists. Works were produced in every field of art. More than ten thousand paintings, more than two thousand sculptures were made. Even if this event is evaluated as a failure, it is successful because it causes the increase of works of art and institutions, and the increase in financial donations to art institutions.
“The founder of the Russian avant-garde, Constructivism art movement, is Vladimir Tatlin. Looking at his life (1885-1953), he was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. He studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1902-1904. It is necessary to know that he visited Paris and had the chance to see Picasso's workshop and meet Cubism. In the ‘Last Futurist Painting Exhibition (0.10), Tatlin was assigned a room, and Tatlin exhibited his ‘opposite’ and ‘corner’ reliefs, which he created with
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machine-like objects protruding into raw real space, in contrast to subtle and spiritually suprematist compositions.” (Artun, 2015:52)
“Tatlin's art had no pretensions to the afterlife. Anyway, that was it and that was it. With his approach to aesthetics, which is not unlike that of an architect, Tatlin's interest was directed towards the physical properties of the materials he used and how they came together. The Three-dimensional Corner for Counter-Relief works aimed to draw attention to the construction of the artwork, the nature of the materials, and the volume and space they occupy. Tatlin's suspended 1915 Counter-Relief for the Corner still feels modern. The metal sheets that he turns into circles and curves predate Frank Gehry's architecture, particularly the rolling roof of the festive Guggenheim (1997) building in Bilbao.” (Gompertz, 2015:158)
"The DNA of Tatlin's 'Corner Counter Relief Works' can be seen in the abstract sculptures by Barbara Hepworth and Henri Moore, the minimalist fluorescent work by Dan Flavin, and the famous brick pile used by Carl Andre." (Gompertz, 2015:158)
Figure2.2.9.28. Vladimir Tatlin, Corner Counter-relief, 71 x 118 cm,State Russian Museum, St Petersburg 1914,Iron, copper, wood, and
Source,https://rusmuseumvrm.ru/data/collections/sculpture/20/tatlin_ve_uglovoy_kontrrelef_1914/index.php?lang=en
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“Perhaps the most famous of the Russian avant-garde projects is Tatlin's Monument to the Third International of 1920. Designed as a kind of leaning Eiffel Tower, at least one-third taller than its Paris prototype, this work was intended to dominate Petrograd's skyline.” (SSM, Rosenthal, 2018: 40)
“This 400-meter tower was never built. Models of the Tatlin Tower, which can be considered as an architectural work rather than a sculpture, are exhibited at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, which is a utopian approach to the forward-looking dynamism of the Soviet Revolution.” (Erden, 2016:211
“An important example of Russian constructivism's interest in science fiction and flight technologies is again evident in Tatlin's project called Letatlin. Letatlin is a combination of the word Letat, which means to fly, and Tatlin's name, and is a human-managed flight device to be used in daily life. By using natural materials such as tatlin, willow, cork, ash, whalebone, silk thread and examining the flight of birds with the principles of aerodynamics; It aimed to create a functional vehicle for the commute of Soviet citizens and unrelated to the Prometheus notion of human flight. Although the ideas put forward by the Letatlin project (1929-1932) were unsuccessful, he strongly argued that the fusion of art with technology in the service of society would be the guarantee of a future pregnant with striking advances.” (SSM, Constructivism, 2018: 121)
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Figure2.2.9.9.Vladimir Tatlin In front of the Third International Monument model, 1919, Petersburg
Source:https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Tatlin
Figure2.2.9.30. Vladimir Tatlin- Letatlin1
Source, https://nashagazeta.ch/news/13616
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“Aleksandr RODCHENKO, one of the founders of the Constructivism art movement, is also one of the important names of the 'History of Modern Photography'. He lived in a period of radical political changes and art movements in Russia. He has produced works in many different branches of art in the fields of painting, sculpture, photography and graphic design. Rodchenko played a major role in spreading the revolutionary principles in the field of art and design after the 1917 Russian Revolution. Rodchenko, who turned to abstract painting since 1913 and adopted an understanding of abstract painting free from Malevich's mystical tendencies, in his geometric paintings that he made with tools such as rulers and compass, was mainly interested in industrial design and photography over time. (Antmen, 2008:108)
RODCHENKO in 1891 in St. He was born in St. Petersburg, studied at the Kazan Fine Arts School; He was impressed by the Futurist performance in 1914. He went to Moscow in 1915 and attended the Moscow Strosnov Institute; Influenced by cubo-futurism, he made his first abstract paintings. In 1916, he was invited by Tatlin to participate in the 'The Store' exhibition. In 1917 Tatlin, along with Yakulov and others, participated in the decoration of the Cafe Pittoresgue, exhibiting the 'Black-on-Black-on-Black' defying suprematism, the 'First Space Constructions'. (Liynton, 1982:383)
“Construction is the arrangement of elements. Construction is a modern concept. Art, like all sciences, is a branch of mathematics. Construction is the modern requirement to organize the functional use of material. Constructivist life is the art of the future. The place of art that does not participate in life is the antiquity sections of archaeological museums. The time has come for art to integrate with life on a regular basis.” (Antmen, 2008:109)
“The 10th State Exhibition, opened in Moscow in 1919, was on “Non-Objective Creativity and Suprematism”. It was as if the exhibition was a theater of the deep aesthetic conflict between the two leaders of the Russian avant-garde. Rodchenko represented non-objectivist art and Malevich represented the Suprematists.” (Artun, 2015:136)
“In the joint manifesto they published, they said: We painted our angry canvases while fat bureaucrats and idiots were booing and whistling at us…we made no concessions to the bourgeoisie.” (Artun, 2015:136)
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Behind this joint protest, the Russian avant-garde was splitting in two, with Rodchenko's black constructions opposing Malevich's white suprematist works. Both made sense of communism, but one was the work of an endless metaphysics, the other of pragmatism as simple as a ruler. Suprematism was a cosmology, constructivism was a laboratory art.
Picture.2.2.9.31. Alexander Rodchenko Non-Objective Painting No.80,Black on Black,O.O.C. ,MOMA,New York
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/rodchenko-alexander/
Painting 31, from Rodchenko's Black on Black series, was a direct response to Kazimir Malevich's White on White paintings earlier in 1918. With this gesture, Rodchenko directly challenged the artist and the basic principles of Suprematism: if for Malevich in his paintings white evoked the infinite expanse of the ideal, Rodchenko used black in various textures and finishes, drawing attention to the material quality of its surface, based on the physical properties of the painting. In contrast to the tilting plane of White on White, the curved forms of Rochenko's canvas suggest dynamic movement.
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Figure2.2.9.32. Alexander Rodchenko, Construction No. 1920, 127, (Two circles) TÜY, Pushkin Museum, Moscow
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/rodchenko-alexander/ His work, Figure32, was made in 1920 as Construction Two Circles No. 127. This balanced composition can be seen as the result of his engineering and design efforts throughout his life. Rodchenko reached such compositions by gradually removing everything he deemed unnecessary in the field of painting from the content of the painting. He reduced the color to black, emphasizing the surface texture and showing the line as the most important thing in the canvas. He took these ideas from Wassily Kandinsky.
“Rodchenko puts three canvases named Pure Red Color, Pure Yellow Color, Pure Blue Color in the exhibition attended by five artists in 1921. These three canvases are a manifesto announcing his abandonment of form-based art: pure art as a revolutionary practice cannot go any further. From now on, art is the art of production.” (Artun, 2015:136)
“Who were affected by the presentation of these three monochromatic panels, which are the important actions of the historical avant-garde? Rodchenko, in 1939, 'I reduced the painting to its logical conclusion and displayed it on three canvases: red, blue and yellow. This is the end of the picture. These are the main colors. Each plane is different and will no longer be representation.' Here Rodchenko announces the end of the painting, but what he wants to show is the traditionality of the painting: what is
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important according to Rodchenko's uniquely oppressive and compelling artistic-political context is that this tradition can be limited to the primary colors painted on different canvases. (Foster, 2009:46)
Figure2.2.9.33. Aleksandr Rodchenko, Final Painting, Pure Red, Pure Yellow, Pure Blue, 1921
Source: https://www.estanbul.com/t280005-aleksander-rodchenko-ve-devrimci-sanat/
“Alexander Rodchenko has adopted the constructivist and productive thinking underlying constructivism. The simplicity in the object Rodchenko has reached has been one of the heralds of minimalism that will re-exist for the future.” (Yılmaz, 2006:90)
One of the artists of the Constructivism art group is Naum Gabo. The artist, whose name is Naum Neemia Pevsner, was born in 1890 in Briansk, Russia. The Russian-born sculptor studied medicine and engineering in Munich. He attended Wölfflin's art history classes. He visited Paris and Italy in 1913 and 1914. He is one of the important practitioners of the constructivism style and one of the founders of the art of Kinetic. One of his brothers, Antoine Pevsner, is one of the pioneers of the art of Constructivism.
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The artist later changed his name to Naum Gabo in order to avoid name confusion with his older brother. He died in 1977.” (Lynton, 1982:369)
“Naum Gabo acts in unity with his contemporary Russian intellectuals. Avant-garde Russians gathered around Malevich and Tatlin in Moscow, where there is an intense artistic life, and these artists, known as "Russian Constructivists", do not believe in figurative art and stay away from imitation. In their three-dimensional work, they focus on demonstrating movement with their techniques and the materials they use. They make space constructions, dynamic space compositions, mobiles that change shape or form, give sound, reflect color and light, with time as the fourth dimension. Machine production is an important means of expression. In the works created by the collaboration of architects, artists and engineers, it is remarkable to get rid of the traditional.” http://lebriz.com/pages/lsd.aspx?lang=TR&sectionID=0&articleID=760
“Rodchenko, Tatlin, Gabo, Pevsner, Moholy-Nagy and Lissitzky are at odds with the administration and are excluded. They are accused of being formalists and conservatives. Avant-gardes like Naum Gabo resist this setback. They leave Russia and continue their work in the West and spread innovative art. He carries out its first constructions in 1915.
Abstract heads made of iron and celluloid planes draw attention in the first sculptures of the artist, who also prepares architectural drafts upon request.” http://lebriz.com/pages/lsd.aspx?lang=TR&sectionID=0&articleID=760
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Figure2.2.9.34. Naum Gabo Metal sculpture designed in Rotterdam, Netherlands
Source: (https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naum_Gabo)
One of the most active members of the Constructivism group is Lyubov POPOVA (1889-1924). “Starting from 1907, he studied at private art workshops in Moscow and established friendships with artists who would later become members of the constructivist group. Before the First World War, Popova made many trips to study the art of both her time and the past: during her visit to Kiev (1909), she saw the liturgical-symbolist works of Mikhail Vrubel in the Church of St. Cyril, early Renaissance works during his long journeys in different parts of Italy (1910-14), medieval icon paintings on his journeys to Novgorod, Pskov and other ancient Russian cities (1910-12), the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg (1911), and Sergey Shukin's collection of paintings by modern French masters (1912).”
“In 1912-1913, she worked with the cubist painters Jean Metzinger and Henri Le Fauconnier in the La Palette workshop in Paris, where she stayed with Nadeja Udaltsova. She went to Samarkand in 1916 and studied Islamic architecture. After returning to Moscow, she worked with Tatlin and other artists in the Kule artist workshop (1912-15). Unlike some of her contemporaries, such as Goncharova and Laryonov, who turned to folk art to liberate Russian art from Western influence, Popova was an internationalist.”
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“In 1914, she exhibited his cubist paintings with the Knave of Tiles group in Moscow. In 1915, Popova with Tatlin, Malevich, Udaltsova, Ekster, Rozanova and other artists participated in the First Futurist Painting Exhibition and The Last Futurist Painting Exhibition: 0.10 in Petrograd. In 1916 she became a member of Malevich's Suprematist group."
“After the 1917 Revolution, Popova and her friends began to produce practical and functional works. They painted murals and made propaganda posters and decorations for major public events. In 1917, Popova made embroidery designs for the Verbovka Village Community Center, a craft cooperative, embroidered by working women; She joined the Free Art Workshops (Svomas) in 1918.”
“By 1920, Popova went beyond the boundaries of two-dimensional painting with her 'Space-Force Constructions': they were paintings made with sand, metal powders, marble and sawdust on bare plywood. Popova would join the latter group in 1921 when the question of "composition" or "construction" sparked heated debate among artists. In the same year, five of her works were shown in the 5 x 5 = 25 exhibition attended by Rodchenko, Stepanova and Ekster and her longtime friend and collaborator, architect Aleksandr Vesnin. Each catalog of the exhibition was custom-made, with a hand-drawn and painted work by one of the artists on each cover.”
“Six months after the declaration of Lenin's New Economic Policies in 1921, twenty-five artists, including Popova, published a statement entitled "Art to Life", rejecting canvas painting altogether."
“It was a time of intense creativity, despite widespread famine, disease, and poverty. Popova and Vesnin were holding street demonstrations in which the masses participated.”
“Popova drew magazine and book covers, designed porcelain cups and workers' clothes during this period; She taught at the State High Theater Workshops. She designed the stage for Meyerhold's plays "The Horned Husband" (1922) and "Conflict in the World" (1923), influencing many artists from Richard Foreman to William Kentridge.”
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“In 1923-24, Popova and her friend Varvara Stepanova, who was a proponent of combining art and life, worked at the Textile Printing Factory to design fabrics and dresses. The fabrics designed by the two artists, which never go out of fashion and which comfortably hugs the body, would be the only mass-produced projects of the Russian avant-garde. Popova would say that she had the most satisfying moments of her artistic life when she saw women wearing her designs on the streets.” (avangardi-lyubov-popova-modern-art-child-yuzu/2768)(Translated from Joyce Kozloff's article titled Liubov Popova, an Homage.)
Figure2.2.9.35. Lyubov Popova: “Painterly Architectonic”(1917)
Source:https://www.e-skop.com/skopbulten/rus-avangardi-lyubov-popova-modern-sanatin-cocuk-yuzu/2768
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Figure2.2.9.36. Lyubov Popova, Clothing and fabric designs Source:https://www.e-skop.com/skopbulten/rus-avangardi-lyubov-popova-modern-sanatin-cocuk-yuzu/2768
Figure2.2.9.37.Lyubov Popova, Clothing design. Figure2.2.9.38. Lyubov Popova Fabric pattern design.
Source:https://www.e-skop.com/skopbulten/rus-avangardi-lyubov-popova-modern-Sanat’ın-cocuk-yuzu/2768
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3. THE EFFECTS OF THE RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE ON ABSTRACT ART IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY
3.1. Avant-garde Influence on European and North American Artists.
The neo-Avangarde, the new avant-garde of the 1950s and 1960s, is a dispersed group of North American and Western European artists who reuse the avant-garde methods of the 1910s and 1920s, such as collage and assemblage, ready-made and monochrome painting, and Constructivist sculpture. . Art in the late 1950s and early 1960s was about two comebacks that were characterized as radical: the ready made of Duchampian Dada and the fortuitous structures of Russian constructivism. In terms of material, form and structure, like Russian constructivism, Tatlin's corner reliefs or Rodchenko's hanging works; It is exemplified in buildings where the outside is considered in terms of space, light and context. Two questions come to mind here: Are the post-war periods a passive repetition of the pre-war periods, or did the new avant-garde influence the historical avant-garde in ways we can only appreciate now? The neo-avant-garde of the 1950s and 1960s was shaped by America's policies to shift the arts center from Paris to New York. (Foster, 2009:31)
“Many artists who felt that there would be a war before the Second World War, such as Hans Hofman, Mondrian, Gabo from Europe from Russia, Pevsner, Graham, immigrated to America, worked effectively and during this period (Matisse, Kandinsky, Mondrian and Malevich) influenced abstract expressionist artists. Thanks to America's art policy towards becoming a world leader, the neo-avant-garde's methods, despite being fed from a similar source with the historical avant-garde's methods, tended to institutionalize with a reality shaped by different actors as of the period. The avant-garde has realized itself by developing problems such as repetition, difference, postponement, causality, temporality, expression with the relationship of deferred effect.” (Şahiner-Cınbarcı, 2020:93-102)
“Neo Avant-garde artists' aim is neither to reject painting in the abstract nor to come to terms with life; to test the rules of both, to seek practices in the tension between late modernism and mass culture.” (Şahiner-Cınbarcı, 2020:93-102)
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“For Foster, neo-avant-garde takes place in two ways: the 1950s, represented by Rauschenberg and Kaprow, and the 1960s, represented by Broodthaers and Buren.
The early neo-avant-garde brings back the historical avant-garde, especially because of its precise use of the avant-garde tools. The result has been the institutionalization of the avant-garde rather than transforming the art establishment.” (Şahiner-Cınbarcı, 2020:93-102)
In the early 1960s (artists such as Flavin, Andre, Judd, Morris) and the late 60s (artists such as Broodthaers, Buren, Asher, and Haacke), Foster argued that Dada, Constructivism, and other historical avant-garde currents were instrumental in the perceptual and cognitive, structural and He develops a critique of traditional rules, based on his research on discursive parameters.
Foster draws three conclusions to this critique:
1)The art institution is understood not by the historical avant-garde in its current sense, but by the neo-avant-garde.
2)Neo-avant-garde deals with the institution of art with a creative analysis that is deconstructive and original at the same time. He disregards the nihilistic attack of the historical avant-garde, often both abstract and anarchist.
3)The neo-avant-garde does not abolish the historical avant-garde. For the first time he fulfills his plan; for the first time here it theoretically expresses infinity.”(Şahiner-Cınbarcı, 2020:109)
“Foster criticizes Bürger's notion that, as unqualified repetitions of the historical avant-garde, the neo-avant-garde serves the institution of art itself and does not carry the spirit of the historical avant-garde.” (Şahiner-Cınbarcı, 2020:116)
“Erasing the trace of the truth from the canvas and in a sense presenting nothing actually begins with Kazimir MALEVİCH's 'Black Square' in 1913. MALEVİCH argues that art no longer serves anything and has no relation with objects. His Black Square, a visual example of the ideas he put forward, is also non-existent in the real world. Geometric Abstractionist painters have erased the 'individual signature' from the art of painting and filled the canvas with colorful geometric spaces. Now the painting will not remind anything figurative, it will only refer to itself, the painting. The viewer will
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concentrate only on the painting itself, without asking himself how it was made or what he wants to convey. The only thing that matters is the 'moment of encounter': here is the painting, there is the viewer. The 'artist-work-audience' chain constructed by Kandinsky, the ancestor of abstraction, has now been reduced to its last two links, and the viewer is alone with the painting from now on.” (Krausse, 2005:109).
3.2. Abstract Expressionism
“In the definition of abstract expression, it is necessary to emphasize the word "expression". Because it is the basic element of an art movement that has existed in Germany since 1905. Between 1905 and 1925, a movement called German Expressionism was witnessed. It can be said that the background of the phenomenon of abstract expressionism is formed by the art movement in question.” (Eroğlu, 2015:265)
“Another source and key point of Abstract Expressionism was the aesthetic represented by Wassily Kandinsky. Because the definition of 'Abstract Expressionism', which was brought to the agenda especially in Germany in the 1920s, was first used to explain Kandinsky's paintings.
In America, the term (Abstract Expressionism) was used for the first time in an article about Hofmann's solo exhibition at the Mortimer Brandt Gallery in New York in 1946. Abstract expressionist art matured in the decade 1940-1950.” (Eroğlu, 2015:265)
“We need to know that we can find the roots of development in post-impressionist artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, German Expressionism Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Max Ernst, Roberto Matta. The names that formed the basis of ‘First Generation Abstract Expressionism’ are William de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Hans Hofman, Arshile Gorky.” (Eroğlu, 2015:266)
America began to come to the fore in artistic activities after the 1940s. With its economic and political power, this was not surprising. The wars in Europe, the economic and psychological damage to the people, the suppression of creative art by the dictatorial rulers, and the immigration of many artists and scientists from other
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countries, primarily Germany, to America were opportunities for the faster development of art and science for them.
The innovative traditions of Paris were still influential on artists and critics who immigrated to America and England. Art collectors, gallerists and the public in America did not remain indifferent to these innovations brought by immigration and followed and supported them with an impartial eye. Many important artists of Europe (Mondrian, Chagall, Leger, Mohaly-Nagy, Hofman) stayed in America during the Second World War years and they did their best to improve and contribute to what was done before them with their presence in this new place.
Under the leadership of the movement known as Abstract Expressionism, there are the ideas and technical innovations of European immigrant artists, not American artists. These were people who met frequently and told each other about their work and what they wanted to do. The influence of Sarter's currents on existentialism from Europe, the ideas of Jung and Kierkegaard have led artists to create a new artistic language. Painters received their first support from several New York critics and painting dealers.
3.2.1. Barnet NEWMAN “American painter. He is one of the first representatives and theorists of the Abstract Expressionism movement. In the mid-1940s, he believed that Cubism, Constructivism and Surrealism in Europe and social realism and local attitudes in the USA were exhausting themselves, and he turned to a mystical abstraction by destroying all his previous paintings. For many years, he worked with M. Rothko, W. Baziotes (1912-1963) and R. Motherwell to popularize abstract art. He carried out theoretical studies that determined the principles of the Abstract Expressionism movement.” (Krausse, 2005:110) “Reflecting these thoughts, he worked as the assistant editor-in-chief of the magazine Tiger's Eye. He rose to prominence in the mid-1950s and influenced younger generation artists such as F. Stella, Larry Poons (1937). Newman, after turning to abstract art, based his works on color. In a simplified style, he made monochrome canvases
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consisting of a single image and divided them into two or three with one or two thin vertical bands. His paintings pioneered the artists who broke away from abstract expressionism and created Color Field Painting.” (Hess, Barnett Newman, Encyclopedia of Turkish and World Famous People, 1971-1978.) “I want the viewer to feel their presence in front of my painting.” said Newman. He achieved this effect with the format of the paintings he created and the intensity of his colored areas. The painting does not leave the viewer alone and he realizes that he is dealing with it, and therefore his presence in front of the painting. Newman's paintings turn into large spaces when left in front of them for a long time.”(Krausse, 2005:110) Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue “The effects of Asian philosophy are seen in the infinity spaces of Newman's paintings. The space in his paintings, most of which are large in size, gives the viewer the opportunity to form their own thoughts. When the viewer looks at the color fields in the huge space, after a while the colors start to move uncomfortably in front of the eyes. In fact, from this point of view, it becomes a fair question that he named his painting Who Is Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue (1969-70). (Girgin, 2018:301) “The artist, who has struggled against any artistic subject related to the object, thinks everything beforehand in his paintings. His paintings are related to the concept of the sublime, which he calls the "Greek Plastic Triumph", that is, compared to the concept of beauty. The Supreme comes through the intuitive way of universal experience and is pure spirituality. On the other hand, Newman thinks that the Greek aesthetic stems from the physical beauty of the object and is the expression of the personal. Towards the middle of the 20th century, he sought to embody the sublime.” (Girgin, 2018:301) “Newman's series titled Who's Afraid, From Red, Yellow, and Blue has inspired many artists after him. While some of them produce new works based on the name only by taking this name, some also bring up Rodchenko's understanding of color and form. Just as Newman became a source of reference for those who came after him, he was influenced by Russian avant-gardes, Malevich's abstract compositions, Rodchenko's red, yellow and blue triptychs. (Girgin, 2018:301)
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Figure3.2.1.39. Barnett Newman, 1969-1970, Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue, O.O.C., 274x603 cm, National Gallery Berlin and Association of Friends of the National Gallery. Source:https://www.wikiart.org/en/barnett-newman/whos-afraid-of-red-yellow-and-blue-iv-1970 Figure3.2.1.40. Barnett Newman, Onement VI, 1953 Color Space Painting Dimensions: 259.1 x 304.8 cm Source:https://www.wikiart.org/en/barnett-newman/onement-vi-1953
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Figure3.2.1.41. Painter, Barnett Newman, Vir Heroicus Sublimis, FEATHER, Dimensions: 2.42 m x 5.42 m MoMA, New York City Source:google.com/search?q=Barnett+Newman+%2CVir+Heroicus+Sublimis%2C+Barnett+Newman%2C+MoMA%2C+New+York&oq=Barnett+Newman+%2CVir+Heroicus+Sublimis%2C+Barnett+Newman%2C+MoMA%2C+New+York&aqs=chrome..69i57.5778j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UT
3.2.2. Mark ROTHKO "One of the leading abstract expressionists, Rothko's life begins in 1903 in the city of Dvinsk, Russia, where the present-day Latvian republic is located, when he was born in 1903 as Rothko Marcus Rothkowitz. Mark Rothko, who is a humorous Jewish American born in Old Russia, now Latvia, is known both as a color space and as one of the most important abstract expressionist painters of our time. Not only did he reject this term throughout his life, he did not even accept the ascription of an abstract painter." (Lynton, 1982:384) “Mark Rothko was one of the painters Greenberg referred to as a (Color Field) color field painter exemplified by Magenta, Black, Green on Orange; however, Rothko himself refused to be attached to any label. For Rothko, color was 'just an instrument'. In a way, his best-known works are "multiform" and other signature paintings, although
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in essence a purer (or less concrete or definable, depending on interpretation) expression, the same expression expresses the same "basic human emotions" as his earlier surreal mythological paintings. Common to these stylistic innovations is the concern of 'tragedy, exhilaration and doom'. By 1958, whatever spiritual expression Rothko portrayed on the canvas was becoming increasingly dark. The bright reds, yellows and oranges of the early 1950s were subtly transformed into deep blues, greens, grays and blacks. His last series of paintings, from the mid-1960s, were gray and black, white bordered, endlessly gloomy, tundra-like, seemingly abstract landscapes of an unknown country.” (https://stringfixer.com/tr/Color_field) “Like Newman, Rothko acquired his Abstract Expressionist taste at a later age. He didn't quite make his move until the late 1940s, when he was in his middle years. He revealed an early example of what would become his mature style in 1949 with his painting Untitled (Magenta on White and Red, Black, Orange, Yellow). Just as the zipper images became Newman's trademark, the smooth transitions of the vertical hue rectangles in Rothko's paintings began to point to Rothko." (Gompertz, 2015:240)
“The work of Mark Rothko, Untitled, does not refer to any phenomenon other than himself. In this respect, the analysis of the meaning of the painting is not based on representation, discourse or context, but on pure perceptual experience. Rothko explains: “To us, these paintings express themselves quite clearly.”
“The painting may represent something, but it is something we feel rather than see.
The fact that Rothko calls his paintings untitled also reflects his belief that this painting is already expressing itself clearly. As a matter of fact, naming any of the paintings with the name of a concept or object will affect the reception of the work by the viewer, the experience of the work and therefore the meaning it will establish. At this point, the title-tag of the work emerges as another factor that is effective on the meaning of the work. It is understood that Rothko wanted to keep the insight of the artist in the background in the direct experience of the audience with the work.” (Çolak, 2019:95)
“Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb, Barnett Newman, in their 1943 text, define the meaning and purpose of pure painting as follows: 'Is the interpretation of a symbol 3000 years ago more authentic than it is today? Pictures are explanatory notes, but may be of
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use to people with low intelligence. What the pictures tell is in the relationship between the Figureand the viewer. The issue here, for us, is not what the pictures convey, but whether the emotions hidden within the framework of these pictures matter.'
This expression heralds a new transformation regarding the issue of meaning in art. Instead of the first approach, which analyzes the meaning of the work on the basis of the relationship of representation, symbolic meaning, discursive level, that is, on the basis of the social or the artist's narrative, in this second approach, the meaning is established directly in the experience of the work of the viewer. At this point, the central position of the artist, which continues in the construction of meaning in the triangle of 'artist-work-audience', changes and leaves its place to the viewer. Meaning becomes the spectator's aesthetic experience.” (Çolak, 2019:96-97)
The way Rothko handles geometric shapes in an abstract painting differs from the approach of Russian constructivists and suprematists, with paint driving and texture ambiguities. Their lines have sharp edges, while Rothko's are soft and blurry, but even with these visuals, their Russian successors are the first to come to mind. Rothko's canvases are large in size and look for color harmony in his early works. “The work of non-religious artists such as Still, Newman, and especially Rothko; It creates images that clearly define what a world stunned by factors such as genocide, total war and again total destruction wants to convey. Even if these artists were interested in the visual themes of the outer world, like other artists around them, they eventually returned to their inner world and sought a meaningfulness that the whole universe could share. They emphasized the importance of the subject and succeeded in convincing their audience that even the most abstract compositions can have connotations close to meaning.” (Lynton, 1982:286)
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Figure3.2.2.42.Mark Rothko, Red on white. Figure3.2.2.43. Mark Rothko,Black on burgundy
ttps://wikioo.org/paintings.php?refarticle=8BWUHW&titlepainting=White%20over%20Red&artistname=Mark%20Rothko%20(Marcus%20Rothkowitz) “In 1958, Rothko created a series of murals for the new Seagram Building in New York. However, when he learned that these paintings would be hung in a hall that will be used as a restaurant, his reaction was very harsh and he took back the works by saying that they were not suitable for such an environment. These works are now in the Tate Gallery in London." (Lynton, 1982:246) He persisted in explaining that the reason why Rothko keeps his works as large as two meters in scale is not ego, pomp or grandeur as seen in giant paintings in the past, arguing that the opposite is the case. He was attempting to create paintings that would make you feel "extremely human and sincere" when you came across them. He saw us as the 'accompaniments' of his paintings. We were the ones necessary for the pictures to express themselves. Since his belief that the works could provoke spiritual reactions in the audience was equally intense, he began to set sharp rules about how the paintings could be exhibited and who could see them. He said he felt a deep sense of responsibility for the life his paintings would reveal to the world. He refused to show
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his works in group exhibitions or in general unsuitable venues, surrounded by the work of other artists. Soon he started thinking not only about painting but also about creating 'spaces'.” (Gompertz, 2015:242)
Figure3.2.2.44. Rothko Chapel Source: https://dunyalilar.org/siradisi-bir-kafa-siradisi-bir-ressam-mark-rothko.html/ “In 1964, his dream came true when an influential Texan couple with art collecting habits, Domingue and John de Menil, decided to build an interdenominational chapel in Houston. The De Menils went to New York to visit Rothko and asked if he would like to paint pictures to hang in the church. He would be able to determine, shape, and control the entire environment that would surround his works. Rothko accepted the job, moved to a larger studio, installed a pulley system with which he could move his huge canvases, and began producing fourteen paintings to hang on the walls of the octagonal church. In the summer of 1967, the paintings were completed and he handed them over to De Menil. The paintings were put into storage until the church opened.” (Gompertz, 2015:242)
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Over time Rothko's style, but not his style, had changed, painting abstract rectangles painted in similar colors on large canvases. But now he was painting the 'tragedy and fate' side of the spectrum of human emotions. From 1950 onwards, the colors became darker and mourning colors. Intense purples mingled with blood-red, browns mingling with grays. The paintings submitted for the de Meniller's church were fit for a building designed for religious contemplation. The pictures in question were put in place in 1971, a year after Rothko's suicide. On the main wall of the church, that is, on the altar wall, there are three canvases to form a triple painting triptych, and Rothko's insistence on the limited illumination of the church with natural daylight only from the ceiling increased the gloomy appearance. In his writings, Rothko addressed all humanity and said, 'Everyone should come to see my paintings, no matter who they are'. “Rothko and his friends knew the German philosopher and philosopher Nietsche's 'The Birth of Tragedy' (1872), such as Malevich, Kandinsky, and Mondrian. Nietsche said in his work: The individual must suffer endlessly in order to sit in a meditative state in a boat in the middle of the sea, in a rocking boat, to visualize the appearance of God and thereby achieve salvation. The final evaluation to be made about Rothko, Newman and Still's understanding of art called 'Abstract Sublime' depends on how much we agree with their imaginary ideas. However, what is at issue here is not just a question of the desire for superiority.” (Lynton, 1982:247) Just as Malevich's 'Black on White Square' is the Figureof the eternal sublime with supersensory universal power, we see that in Rothko's church paintings, vaguely cross motifs are drawn on black. The triple triptych is the minimally abstracted pictorial version of the 'father-son-mother' idea in Christian thought. Rectangular drawings, which give the feeling of a door opening to the void on a massive flat black background, make the audience think of the metaphor of the door opening to the infinite sublime. Man can find a way out in his spiritual world that reaches the sublime.
3.2.3. Clyfford STILL “He was born in 1904 in Grandin (North Dakota). He studied art at Washington State University. The artist was one of the first generation abstract expressionists who
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brought a new perspective to painting after the Second World War. With his later works, he became one of the color field painters. Clyfford Still rejected all European Art as the vicious consequences of the collapse of Western Europe; He has removed all the messages of the visible world from his works. He did his best to separate color from all its connotations, its use of paint, from the personal qualities of handwriting and emotional expression. He gave his works numbers instead of names.” (Lynton, 1982:243)
“It was a journey one had to make alone and on foot.” he writes.
It is indisputable that there is something heroic and imaginary in Still's paintings in 1949 and later. These large paintings, which were dark in color because of the dominance of black color, later took on a brighter and more colorful character. These paintings consisted of flat, vertical shapes, all of a different color, with broken or worn edges, with rough surfaces to give a sense of density and weight. Had they been painted more dimly, these forms might, over time, give the impression of wooden curtains on which worn-out posters were hung. Their verticality reflects our posture, but also gives the impression of rising and falling. The bright, eye-catching stripes of color symbolize the sense of light trying to find its way through large, dark obstacles.” (Lynton, 1982:243)
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Figure3.2.3.45. Clyfford Still,1957-D No.1,1957, Oil on Canvas, 113 × 159 inches, Albright–Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyfford_Still#cite_note-25
3.2.4. Jackson POLLOCK “Born in Cody (Wyoming), USA in 1912, the artist grew up in California and had his first art education there. He entered the Art Students League in New York in 1931-33 to study sculpture and painting. He met Mexican painters and spent time with them. The tradition of mural painting had a strong influence on him. He is one of the most important artists of the 20th century. He abandoned the usual practices such as mixing paint with the drip painting technique and using a brush, and by acting on the gigantic canvases he laid on the ground, he made paintings called action, motion painting by pouring, dripping and throwing paint.” (Lynton, 1982:382) If we know about Kandinsky's paintings when we first see Pollock painting, we see the abstract painting approach coming from the European painting tradition, the technique and paint driving styles of Kandinsky's and Rodchenko's paintings, and we see the paintings that remind him of these painters. Pollock was the first painter who did not use traditional painting materials. The surface on which he paints is not cloth stretched to a canvas. It works by laying it on the ground. Like Mondrian, he had taken the canvas off the easel, but laid it on the floor, not on the table. Pollock uses implicit images like Kandinsky in his works, sometimes we can see hand shapes and sometimes calligraphic
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elements. The artist paved the way for performance and Happenings practices with his work.
Figure3.2.4.46.Jackson Pollock Autumn Rhythm (Size 30), 1950.207 inches
Source.https://www.jackson-pollock.org/autumn-rhythm.jsp
Figure3.2.4.47.Alexander Rodchenko, Abstraction (Anti-Realism)1943-1944, Watercolor, gouache and ink on paper64x172.7cm, State Museum of Contemporary Art, Castakis Collection
Source.(S.S.M.K.)
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When we examine the two pictures above, pictures 46 and 47, one is by Jackson Pollock and the other is by Alexandre Rodchenko. Of the two paintings, Rodchenko painted at an earlier date. Painting is one of the most important examples of abstract expression, and it seems to have influenced Pollock's painting technique in terms of technique and visuality.
Figure3.2.4.48. Jackson Pollock Convergence, 1952, 93x5 x155 inches https://www.jackson-pollock.org/convergence.jsp 3.2.5. Willem de KOONING “Born in the Netherlands, he studied fine and commercial arts and attended the Rotterdam Academy. The artist went to New Jersey and thus began the rest of his life there. In New Jersey, Kooning also found work as a house painter. Large brushes and liquid paints, which he would continue to use throughout his artistic career, were tools of this trade. His dual foundations in drawing and craftsmanship underlie all his work, even his most abstract paintings. De Kooning's next stop was New York, where he shaped his artistic career. When the Jazz Age was in full swing when he moved to the city, he quickly fell under the influence of the lyrical freedom of jazz and the abstract
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art he made under the influence of other artists. Being in New York also brought him in touch with the work of Henri Matisse and especially with contemporaries such as John Graham and Arsile Gorky, with whom he developed a close and inspiring friendship.”
(https://www.moma.org/artists/3213) “In the 1930s, De Kooning was commissioned to design public murals. Although his murals work was never realized, these were among his earliest abstractions and his experience working on this project encouraged him to make art full time. By the 1940s, Kooning had gained a reputation as an artist. Over a career spanning nearly seven decades, he would work on a wide variety of styles, eventually establishing himself as a crucial link from New York School painting to European modernism.” (https://www.moma.org/artists/3213) He made works that seem to be related to Europe, as seen in Gorky and Pollock in De Kooning's paintings. In 1948, he influenced the New York art world with his painting exhibition consisting of black and white paintings. His free and comfortable behavior in the brush strokes he used while painting impressed the audience. It was the energetic look that radiated from within the paintings that the critics liked. His 1948 and 1949 paintings made him the forerunner of Contemporary American Painting. De Kooning's paintings and sculptures are works that have been revealed in a certain artistic development process. Shapes, shapes, spaces between forms, and figure-like drawings that seem to be made up of colors on his canvases remind us of Kandinsky's paintings made after 1910, which include piano, audience, landscape, and they also make us feel that they are paintings made with an intense spirituality and inner intuition.
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Figure3.2.5.49.Willem de Kooning, Excavation,1950, O.O.C.,205.7X254.6 CM Source:https://www.artic.edu/artworks/76244/excavation
Picture.2.5.50. Willem de Kooning Untitled V, 1950-52 Source: https://www.willem-de-kooning.org/untitled-v.jsp
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3.2.6.Gerhard RICHTER “The German artist is known for his productive and stylistic explorations of the painting medium, often involving and exploring the visual effects of photography. ‘I love everything that has no style: dictionaries, photographs, nature, myself and my pictures. Because the style includes violence and I am not pro-violence.' In the early 1960s, Richter began creating large-scale photorealists. He invented a series of grayscale rendered copies of black-and-white photographs, and the blurry effect (sometimes considered "photographic impressionism"), in which parts of his compositions appear smeared or softened. Paradoxically, he was reproducing photographic effects and the painter was revealing his hand. With heavily textured abstract gray monochromes, Richter incorporated abstraction into his practice and continued to move freely between figuration and abstraction.” (https://tr.kyaaml.org/gerhard-richter-biography-4171725-4627) “Richter began his eponymous series of paintings in 1976: Abstraktes Bild (Abstract Paintings). He begins when he brushes large bright colors onto the canvas, then uses paint blurring and scraping to reveal the underlying layers and blend the colors. In the mid-1980s, Richter began using a homemade squeegee in his process. Gerhard Richter's later abstract discoveries included 99 overpainted photographs, photographs of details from his abstract paintings combined with text about the Iraq War, and a series of ink-on-wet paper using the fusion and spreading of material.” (https://tr.kyaaml.org/gerhard-richter-biography-4171725-4627)
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Figure3.2.6.51.Gerhard Richter, Abstract Painting 1988 35 cm x 40 cm O.O.C. Source:https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/art/paintings/abstracts/abstracts-19851989-30/abstract-painting-7707/?&categoryid=30&p=1&sp=32
Figure3.2.6.52.Gerhard Richter Gelbgrün (Yellow-Green), 1982,TÜY
Source:https://www.frieze.com/article/gerhard-richter-1
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Richter's works, which we see in pictures 51 and 52, are among the most influential painting applications of the Abstract Expressionism art movement. It leaves the viewer alone with the canvas surface on which the paint is applied at a rapid pace. Kandinsky said that painters must paint by inner necessity. In this painting, it is seen that the artist uses contrasting colors in his style of using color, and tries to reveal an inner expression by using the spatula and the method of dripping and pouring the paint, instead of the traditional painting brush.
3.3. Color Space and Monochrome Art Movements and Artists
“The key features of Color Space Painting are the presentation of bright colors, specific shapes that can be amorphous or geometric, but not very straight-edged. The works emphasize the flatness of the canvas or paper, because that's what a painting is all about. The excitement comes from the tension between colors and shapes. Integration of shapes through overlapping or interlacing blurs spatial distinctions so that the image has almost no meaning against the background. Sometimes the shapes both emerge and fuse into the surrounding colors. These pictures are often very large. This encourages the viewer to experience color as an enormous, expanding expanse.” (Nesic, 2019:2)
“In paintings they emphasize the flatness of the surface. They do not refer to objects in the natural world. Color Space paintings are large canvases. If you stay close to the canvas, the colors extend beyond your peripheral vision, like a lake or the ocean. These mega-sized rectangles require your mind or your eye to leap into the expanse of red, blue, or green. Then you can almost feel the sensation of the colors.” (Nesic, 2019:2)
“The color space owes much to Kandinsky in terms of philosophy, but it does not express the same color relations. The best known color space painters are Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland.” (Nesic,2019:3)
“Beginning in 1945, a group of painters took as an example the abstract paintings of Malevich and Rodchenko, which they made with tones of a single color. Monochromatic paintings were an example of reductive aesthetics.” (https://www.nedirnedemek.com/monokrom-ne-demek)
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“The pioneering monochromes of Malevich, Rodchenko, Rheinhardt, Klein, and Ryman use only one color, unlike many later examples that contain a dominant but not uniform hue. Monochrome, with both its spiritual and material interpretations, represents a distillation and eschatological (final) position. It's not the beginning, it's the end. Monochromes were not related to monochrome as a concept adopted or not adopted by artists as a modernist tactic among others, primarily exploring a color was useful for a variety of artistic, aesthetic expressions for a particular project, piece or time period.”(Berne, 2005:1-6)
3.3.1. Ad RHEINHARDT
“He is an artist who shaped the American art market in the 1950s and 1960s with his writings and paintings. Between 1960-66, Rheinhardt works with his black paintings, all in the same format, by connecting with philosophies such as Neo-Platonism, Zen Buddhism and East-West pure painting tradition. For Reinhardt, the traditional texts of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christian mysticism have been intellectually intriguing sources that provide a rich backdrop to the increasingly complex and elusive nature of his black paintings. What is fascinating to Rheinhardt about Zen and some mystical fields is that these fields are related to the concepts of meaninglessness and emptiness, and respond to the artist's need to express abstract art in a different way.” (Okkalı, Küçükosman, 2020:209) “Well, why does Rheinhardt change his style and turn to darker tones? Why does it use the square form as a literal format? According to Michael Corris, the artist makes these extreme choices to go beyond the cognitive experiences of life and art. As he stated in his unpublished notes on his black paintings, 'Official; It seeks to push beyond the levels that can be thought, seen, and felt. Another reason is that the left-wing philosophers of the 1930s were influenced by the dialects that tended towards the ideal and the absolute end. He worked on a series of red and blue paintings with a limited color gamut, giving each of these paintings a
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formal cohesion, as outlined by the 1952 piece No. 5 (The Red Wall), made of multiple overlapping orange rectangles.” (Okkalı, Küçükosman, 2020:213)
“Another important reference point for the black square paintings by Rheinhardt is the paintings of Kazimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian.
In an interview with Bruce Glaser, Glaser said, “Some critics see a close correlation between the black paintings you do and the negative actions taken by Dadaist artists like Duchamp. What do you think of this kind of relationship?” to the question “No. There could be a relationship with Malevich and Mondrian, but it would be the opposite of Duchamp.” gives an answer.” (Okkalı, Küçükosman, 2020:216) From this answer, we see that the Russian avant-garde followed the path of pictorial style while making his paintings. In the early 1940s, Reinhardt was closely involved with modernist theories of abstraction, including the writings of Malevich and Mondrian. The artist, who is interested in the theoretical content of Malevich's non-objective paintings as well as their formal structure, tries to find the meaning that lies beyond reason and logic. In this respect, in the words of Uşun Tükel, Malevich's geometric paintings, which do not carry any statement from the visible reality, do not turn to any social, political or other usage environments, are the reflection of a purely 'aesthetic feeling', are combined with the conceptual structure of Reinhardt's black square paintings. bears resemblances.” (Okkalı, Küçükosman, 2020:217)
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Figure3.3.1.53.Ad Rheinhardt, Black Paintings (1960-66), oil on canvas, 152.4 x 152.4 cm. (From the exhibition at the David Zwirner Gallery in 2019)
Source: https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/1102605
Figure3.3.1.54. Ad Rheinhardt, Abstract Painting No:5, Black Painting, 1963, T.Ü.Y. 152.4x152.4cm
Source: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/ad-reinhardt-1826
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“Reinhardt actively appeals to Eastern philosophy to gain insight into the creative process in art. In this process, his interest in Malevich and Mondrian leads him to explanations about the spiritual dimension in abstract painting.” (Okkalı, Küçükosman, 2020:217)
Figure3.3.1.55.Left: Ad Reinhardt, Blue Painting, 1953, Oil on canvas. 60.9 x 40.6 cm, Private Collection, © 2017 The Ad Reinhardt, Abstract Painting – Blue, 1952, Oil on canvas, 45.7 x 35.5 cm, Right: Abstract Painting – Blue, 1952, On canvas oil paint. 61 x 30.5 cm, Private Collection, © 2017 The Ad Reinhardt Foundation, David Zwirner Gallery Archive
Source: https://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibitions/2017/blue-paintings
3.3.2. Yves KLEIN “Especially known for the color blue, which is named after him, he is a French artist who makes abstract paintings that has an important place in the history of art. Being born in a family of artists enabled him to meet art and painting at an early age and directed him towards art.” (Uz, 2017:4) “Although Klein was one of the most talented and changed the direction of Western art during his short artistic life, Klein is the most innovative and important artist of the group by going beyond the general principles of the movement. He is also a colorist like never before, a painter of the future ahead of his time, and this allowed him to create a new generation later on.”(Uz, 2017:4)
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He proposes his first monochrome work to be exhibited at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, reserved for abstract artists, in the spring of 1955. This monochrome painting, covered all over with an even matte orange paint, is a rectangular wooden panel. It was rejected by the jury, stating that a monochrome painting was unsatisfactory or even impossible for display, which could be hung if Klein agreed to at least add a small line or dot or make some other touch. For the artist, they are all different because of the color ranges.” (Uz, 2017:4) Figure3.3.2.56.Yves Klein, Monochrome Orange, pure pigment and synthetic resin on canvas, 50x150cm. 1955.
http://www.yvesklein.com/en/oeuvres/view/7/monochromes/1086/monochrome-orange-sans-
titre/?of=13
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Figure3.3.2.57. Yves Klein Untitled blue monochrome. Dry pigment and synthetic resin on gauze mounted on panel78 1/2 x 60 1/2 inches Center Georges Pompidou - Musée National d'art moderne, Paris, France© Yves Klein Mansion c/o ADAGP, Paris
Source:http://www.yvesklein.com/en/oeuvres/view/959/untitled-blue-monochrome/ “Klein is a person who loves colours, the mystical world, the show, and it is possible to see the effect of this in his works. In addition to his attention-seeking shows and provocativeness, his passion for color is one of his most important features. Monochromes are the first thing that comes to mind when Yves Klein is mentioned, especially his monochrome work with blue. In 1955, Yves Klein exhibited his monochrome oil paintings to the public for the first time, presenting a new and controversial form of abstraction that includes only one color.” (Uz ,2017:4) At the Club des Solitaires in Paris, Klein decorated the walls with vivid canvases in colors such as magenta, yellow, red and blue. The goal of completely rejecting representation in art was completely misunderstood by the audience, even when Klein re-presented these works at Galerie Colette Allendy a year later. These early viewers interpreted the works as a striking new style of interior decoration. Disappointed but not dissuaded, Klein gravitated more towards monochrome instead, later calling the style "an open window to freedom." He worked with a chemist to formulate and patent his own color for these paintings—a strikingly saturated navy blue he named International Klein Blue (IKB).
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Figure3.3.2.58. Yves Klein, Monochrome and Feuer, Three Pieces (Gold Leaf) Source,https://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/Lots/auction-lot/YVES-KLEIN-Monochrome-und-Feuer-(Triptych)?saleno=2315&lotNo=55&refNo=676755 Delighted with color's ability to transcend the material world, Klein spent the rest of her career creating monochrome canvases, reliefs, sculptures, furniture, and even balloons in this signature colour. “These are the artist's best-known works and are almost like his icon. Klein, who wants to reveal the place of the artist in society, states that in his paintings, where he emphasizes that the important thing is not the painting, but the audience, he transforms the space with color and perhaps provokes the audience. For him, his works are the ashes of his art. For the artist, color is not a reflection of another color, it is only himself and he wants to create a space, a void. For his paintings, in which he usually suggests monochrome colors of blue, pink and gold, and which he considers to be indescribable and invisible, Klein speaks of "I want it to be immeasurable, spread out, permeate." SOBİDER Journal of Social Sciences / The Journal of Social Science / Year: 4, Issue: 12, August 2017, p. 81-93
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3.3.3. Robert RAUSCHENBERG
He is an American painter, sculptor, photographer, printmaker and performance artist. Although it is too individualistic to be considered a part of any movement, it can be said that it has served as a bridge between abstract expressionism and pop art. He brought back the representation phenomenon to art in the USA. Many of the new techniques and methods he developed were also used by young artists of the next generations. Rauschenberg has expressed that he wants to work in the gap between art and life from time to time and has produced works that question the distinction between everyday objects and artistic objects. In this respect, it can be said that he is related to Marcel Duchamp, one of the pioneers of the Dada movement.” (Rose, 1989:1)
When we look at Rauschenberg's work of art created in 1951, White Painting, Three Panels and White Painting Four Panels, it was made in a Minimalist style and with latex paint. When we examine it, we see Malevich's white work on the White Square or Rodchenko's monochrome yellow, red and blue canvases, which is one of the Russian avant-garde artists. Thirty years have passed, but the color, form and features used by the avant-garde continued to form a sub-template for the artists of contemporary art.
“Rauschenberg creates works of minimalism in his journey to produce works of art, in which everyday use items with collage are brought to the surface of the canvas. He combined objects such as car tires, tennis balls, bicycle tires, and stuffed goats with paint, mostly using a style close to expressionism, without changing them, and produced works that fall between painting, collage and assemblage. Rauschenberg's style is sometimes described, along with his friend Jasper Johns, as Neo-Dada. Among the artists he was influenced by, Dada artist Kurt Schwitters, painter and color theorist Josef Albers and one of the pioneers of conceptual art Joseph Beuys” (Rose, 1989:2)
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Figure3.3.3.59. Robert RAUSCHENBERG. White Painting, a Three Panel Artwork created by a Minimalist latex paint in 1951
Source.: https://arthistoryproject.com/artists/robert-rauschenberg/white-painting-three-panel/ Figure3.3.3.60. Robert Rauschenberg ,White Painting inside the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art [four panels]1951FEW,182.9 x 182.9 cm White Painting Robert Rauschenberg FoundationImage. Source: https://www.rauschenbergfoundation.org/art/artwork/white-painting-four-panel
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3.3.4.Robert Ryman “American painter and graphic artist. He drew works identified with the movements of monochrome painting, minimalism and conceptual art. His best-known works have attracted attention with his works using white paint and objects on white canvas. The artist continued his life and work in New York City. Most of his paintings are characterized by white strokes on square canvases. In 1992, a major retrospective exhibition was held at the Museum of Modern Art and the Tate Gallery. (https://www.artsy.net/artist/robert-ryman) “Older artists like Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko and Philip Guston had already reduced painting to its core when Ryman started working. In 1955, Ryman began what he considered his first professional work, The Orange Painting (1955–59), a largely monochrome painting. He created his Classico in 1968-69. A series of compositions of multi-panel paintings on a particular type of paper called Classico, for each work in the series, Ryman placed sheets of heavy, creamy white paper on the wall with masking tape, painted the sheets with bright white acrylic paint, removed the tape when the sheets were dry, mounted them on foamcore. and reattached them to the wall. The built-in paint edge following the outline of the masking tape and the torn paper left behind testified to the creation process.” (https://www.artsy.net/artist/robert-ryman) Figure3.3.4.61. Robert RYMAN, Enamel paint on fiberglass, aluminum and wood, 76x71c Source: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ryman-ledger-t03550
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Robert Ryman is the artist who uses his square form, reminiscent of Kazimir Malevich with his abstract, all-white paintings. In typical square compositions, unlike Malevich, instead of using traditional paints, he chose his materials to create texture on the canvas, finding endless variation by varying the finishes and scales, as well as the layers, opacity, and specific hues of his white paints. “Ryman also hung his paintings at different heights, framing them in various ways, and varying their distance from the wall. The various works in the Classico series differ in the organization of the paper sheets, the configuration of the tape tracks and the way they are painted. Some of the 12-meter square paintings in the series were not made on fiberglass, but on cotton or linen. In each of these studies, due to the varying degrees of opacity and translucency in white paint, the pigment appears to form a membrane over the backing, juxtaposing it with areas where it is less applied, leaving the fabric exposed. Although Ryman is best known for his paintings, he also experimented with printmaking, creating etchings, aquatints, lithographs, serigraphs, and reliefs. As with his paintings, his prints are easily identifiable by their predominantly square monochrome surfaces that explore the value, texture, and effects of the various whites and other colors printed on paper and aluminum.” (https://www.artsy.net/artist/robert-ryman) 3.3.5. Marcia Hafif Based in Southern California, Light is a reductionist artist based in Southern California, working in various hues on serialized color canvases that continue the media-specific advances of his ancestors, such as Marcia Light, Robert Rauschenberg, Alexander Rodchenko, and Robert Ryman, who have been devoted to process-oriented monochrome painting since the 1970s. Preferring an exploratory and deconstructive approach rather than being an exploratory one, it aims to emphasize the basic qualities of both paint and color. Light claims that because she tries to answer questions through repetition, she produces similarity, not sameness. The artist mixes his own oil paints, which are less consistent than commercial versions and allow him to create subtle gradients and tensions between tones. Although he is best known for his monochromes, a steady style of observation also permeates his photographs, videos,
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and text-based works.” (https://www.artsy.net/artwork/marcia-hafif-english-red-red-paintings) “Marcia Light will always be known for her relentless exploration of color, with square and modest-scale monochrome paintings as her preferred medium,” said Michael Ned Holte, co-director of the California Institute of the Arts School of the Arts. she said in a statement. “But Marcia's true gift was patient and intelligent observation. Not just to the colors and its wild potential, but also to the weeds that pop up and photograph the Laguna garden, and the language she enumerates in experimental texts and provocative essays.” (Genzlinger, 2018:1-3) Working with a growing grouping to include 26 different series with titles such as "Light Mixed Paintings (1976) and Shaded Paintings (2013-18), Light" has collectively named many of her works "Inventory". She loved seeing what different types of paint did on different surfaces. She painted on canvas, wood, walls. Her paintings can be small or quite large, as in 1979-1980 from the Inventory: Black Paintings, held at the Newman Popiashvili Gallery in Manhattan in 2010. She started doing color studies, experimenting with a single color, and grouping those works together to get an effect." (Genzlinger, 2018:1-3) In One ”(1972-73), she made as many transitions from black to white as possible, each a 22-by-22-inch canvas. In her 1978 article "Starting Again" in Artforum, he explored the complexity of monochrome painting and discussed how the work of artists who painted in this mode changed drastically based on the choice of canvas, brushstrokes, and even how the work was hung. ‘Pictures like these are not what you see as an illusion of reality, but what you see as objects in their own right. The eye rests on the surface it was once expected to penetrate. Where we used to read about a surface, we now look at the materiality of that surface, ignoring the material from which it was made.' (Genzlinger,2 018:1-3)
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Picture.3.5.62. Light's “Extended Gray Scale” (1972-73) is held this year at the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen For the work, he did as much grayscale as he could find - it turned out 106 paintings, each a 22-by-22-inch canvas. Marcia Light, Kunstmuseum via St. Gallen (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/obituaries/marcia-hafif-painter-of-monochro9 merlin_137601315_db1a7297-cdaf-4910-afe2-3be7b40293d0-jumbo (1) Figure3.3.5.63.Marcia Light, English Red (Red Paintings),1997,O.O.C.,64× 64× 4 cm Source:https://www.artsy.net/artwork/marcia-hafif-english-red-red-paintings
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Figure3.3.5.64. Marcia Hafif Pacific Ocean Picture: Alizarin Crimson,2000,O.O.C.,76,2 × 66, cm
Source:https://www.artsy.net/artwork/marcia-hafif-pacific-ocean-painting-alizarin-crimson
3.4. OP ART
“Another movement that examines the effects of colors and forms on people is 'Op Art'. Its most important representative is Victor Vasarely. The artist, who was working on optical illusions as early as the 1930s, was interested in the nature of the phenomenon of seeing, like the impressionists. This emphasis on the value of color itself is of course not new. As early as the 1930s, Van Doesburg, one of the artists of the De Stijl movement, introduced "basic art" principles, and Josef Albers, who immigrated to America and spread Bauhaus functionalism there, played an important role in the institutionalization of these principles. Albers explored the character and interrelationship of colors in numerous variations of his Ode to the Square.” (Krausse, 2005:110-111)
“Here, color is not an accompanying element of form, as Albers himself once defined it, but the main purpose of artistic effort. The color that has become independent enters the Figurethat Albers always keeps small for some reason, and creates a multifaceted tangle of relations there. The painter has based this mutual interaction of colors in the
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theory he calls 'interaction of colours'. In his eyes, unlike Op Art, the function of color is not limited to this mutual interaction, it must also be able to preserve its own 'value' during 'interaction'.” (Krausse, 2005:110-111)
“In the concept of modern art, a subject-oriented philosophy approach that emerged with Kant has been effective. Consciousness, which accepts the existence of the objective world within this framework, has increased the need for self-expression, establishing a dialogue with contemporary and archaic symbols, reminding and evoking. Therefore, the process of moving Constructivism to the next time, just like these two artistic understandings, has made it possible to be 'Post-Constructivist' by trying to be shaped by individual perception codes.” (Özer, 2009:50)
“Post-Constructivism has found reflection in the interpretations of individual creation styles by artists from different cultures, rather than the collective perception of Constructivism. Constructivism has been a method of working not only in the plastic arts but also in fields such as psychology, sociology and pedagogy. Op-Art artists set out from the Constructivist understanding. Most optical artists have directly or indirectly benefited from abstract geometric art, constructivism and De Stijl.” (Özer, 2009:50)
3.4.1. Victor Vasarely
(1908-1997) “He is a Hungarian-born French painter. In the 1950s, he produced abstract works based on optical illusions. After studying in the Bauhaus approach in 1929, he settled in Paris and worked as a graphic designer there. Vasarely, black and white contrasts, geometric patterns; adapted to forms such as tigers and zebras. While doing these, he included shifts from positive to negative and expressed the movement in his works with wave-like lines of different widths. The geometric-abstract works of Vasarely are dominated by lattice formations in terms of their positions and colors. The motifs seem to swell, pop out, or recede.” (Eroğlu, 2015:259)
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Figure3.4.1.65. Victor Vasarely "Line-V" 1971, Oil on Panel 33x33 cm Source:https://www.anticstore.art/85512P
3.4.2. Josef ALBERS “German-American painter and art teacher Josef Albers conducted various studies on the properties of color and its effects on the viewer. Based on the square, he developed a perception theory that influenced the Op-art (Optical Art) movement. He worked at Yale on his masterpiece Respect to the Square (after 1950), which he linked to the works of the Russian suprematist (theorist) Kasimir Malevich. Here, the essence of Albers' color experiments is shown, and he explained his thoughts on Op-art, kinetic art, paintings in which colors are applied side by side, and the theory of perception (for example, the illusionistic effect of lines in space), which was an important factor in the development of New Abstract works. He showed the dependence of color effect on factors such as situation, environment, number and intensity of light, based on an unchanging geometric screen (interlocking color fields). In total, more than 1000 variations on this theme have emerged.” Source (bilgitor.com/josef-albers-kimdir-hayati-ve-eserleri/)
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Figure3.4.2.66. Josef Albers, 1964, Homage to the Square: Departing in Yellow, Oil on Fiberboard, size: 762 × 762 mm Source:https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/albers-study-for-homage-to-the-square-departing-in-yellow-t00783
3.5. Minimalism
Suprematism, Constructivism, and De Stijl, the early avant-garde movements from which Minimalism originated, had a conceptual dimension as their artists' theoretical writings describe, but rejected representation in favor of pure abstraction.
“In 1913, Russian artist Kazimir Malevich, who placed a black square on a white background, completely turned his back on painting's effort to show and represent certain objects, and pioneered an artistic understanding that finds meaning in itself. Malevich thus art; separated the representation phenomenon from its ideological function and purified it from its functionality; But on the other hand, with this approach, Tatlin and Rodchenko departed from the ideological approach of the Russian constructivists, which identifies form with function.” (Antmen, 2008:181)
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"The definition of minimalism includes the use of contemporary industrial materials and methods, as well as a non-relational understanding of composition, a formal simplicity that is 'freed' from all redundancy, and the repetition of unitary elements." (Antmen, 2008:182)
“While the specific object of minimalism proposes a new artistic category, neither painting nor sculpture, it is not preceded in the historical process; Artists are also aware of this.
While referring to Malevich with his attitude towards the perception of the art object in its own right, by using and displaying industrial material in its raw form, avoiding presenting the material as something other than itself, and transforming the discourse that the function determines the form is our needs that shape our tastes, the minimalists revealed that they followed the path of the Russian constructivists. ” (Antmen, 2008:183)
“After designing how the material will be used, it may be possible to leave the work in the hands of the technicians and be content with giving instructions; therefore, the creation process is largely reduced to the design and conceptualization phase. Despite their formal similarities and their interest in the use of ready-made materials, the fact that they do not see art as an experiment in functional design seems to be the main feature that distinguishes Minimalists from Constructivists, while not using ready-made objects as an expression of an anti-art attitude sets a distinct distance between them and Duchamp.” (Antmen, 2008:184)
“Minimalism, which is not painting or sculpture, on the other hand, brought expansions in the context of diversity in the use of materials and rethought spatiality, was the main movement that left its mark on the American art scene between 1960 and 1970.” (Antmen,2008:185) 3.5.1.Ellsworth KELLY
In the book about Kelly's biography, published by the US artist-painter Moma, we understand that he also learned the basic examples and philosophical thoughts that prepared the abstract painting, although it is said that he saw Kandinsky's paintings in the painting exhibition of the art gallery he visited in Paris, but did not like them. He lived in the USA with other artists such as Agnes Martin, Jack Youngerman, Robert
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Indiana. Kelly, like his successors in painting, never thought of making philosophical explanations about the art of painting. His art has dignified and optimistic features, and in the maturation period of his art, he tries to convey the contrasts between black and white, which is concise and geometric, by following the path of the Russian avant-gardes. Judging by the essential features of his work, Kelly had made a series of small canvases, enough to cover a wall, all forming a single composition. Sometimes a canvas hung vertically down a wall would join with another canvas laid horizontally on the floor, forming a right angle to it. Identical steel plates, one hung vertically and the other horizontally, could form a dull white sculpture. Perfection in the display and attention to detail in the handling of the paintings, symbolic features, a single fingerprint, a collapse on the surface, the light that creates a shadow can spoil Kelly's carefully balanced visual expression. Kelly's art is seen as the pioneer and best example of Minimalism that emerged in the mid-1960s. He played an important role in the development of minimalism. In 1954 he dominated the New York art world. Like the Abstract Expressionists, Kelly has sometimes worked on a very large scale. His paintings typically worked with eigenforms, flat and smooth surfaces, and radiant color contrasts. His canvases consist of colored adjacent geometric panels. In the 1960s, Kelly began to apply his approach to colour, form and line to printmaking.” (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ellsworth-Kelly)(Lynton1982:258)
Figure3.5.1.67. Ellsworth Kelly, Black and White – 1973 Comment: Serigraphy and embossing; Signed and numbered 23.50 x 35.51 inches.
Source: https://www.artcurial.com/en/node/1091158
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Figure3.5.1.68. Ellsworth Kelly Black 2001 Monochrome lithograph, 45 edition Paper size: 34 11/16 x 59 1/8
Source:https://www.geminigel.com/artists/ellsworth-kelly/#images
Figure3.5.1.69. Ellsworth Kelly, Green, Black, Red, Blue, 1966; acrylic on canvas, four panels, each: 52 1/4 inches x 22 9/16 inches (132.7 cm x 57.3 cm); Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, gift from Sydney and Frances Lewis
Source:https://www.sfmoma.org/essay/how-to-install-an-ellsworth-kelly-artwork-blue-green-black-red-1996-as-a-case-study/.
This acrylic paint work of Ellsworth Kelly on four panel canvas named Green, Black, Red, Blue is so similar to the pure red, pure yellow and pure blue work that Rodchenko exhibited in the historical past, naming it his last painting.
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3.5.2. Dan FlAVIN
“Dan Flavin, the pioneering artist of minimalist art, is known for his works that directly surround the space and create a unique atmosphere in the space, with his works that use fluorescent, an industrial production, in a simple sense, with his illuminated structure design.
In his first solo exhibition at the Judson Gallery in 1961, his work, called Icon, consisted of paintings and watercolors that highlighted the contours and corners with light bulbs.
Flavin named these works as 'Icon', but added, 'I see the word icon not as a purely religious term, but as a hierarchical relationship to provide electric lighting, from bottom to top, on the edge, also as a square surface, colored with lights'. With these works, Flavin stated that he aimed to highlight the light as a material.” (Ataseven, 2012:88)
Figure3.5.2.70. Dan Flavin Icon V (Corans Broadway Flesh) 1962 collection
Source:https://www.artspace.com/magazine/news_events/close_look/dan-flavin-icons-53040
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“When he exhibited the work of American minimalist artist Dan Flavin called 'Monument for Tatlin' in 1964, he sends a greeting to Malevich as well as Tatlin.
Flavin's work is an arrangement made with fluorescent lights. The artist did not interfere with them, he only brought them together in a certain order. The work does not seem to represent anything, it does not tell anything. There is only. Art for minimalists, as exemplified by Flavin's work, is "what you see is what you see, there is no more." (Antmen, 2008:181)
The contribution of the Russian constructivist Tatlin to the development of Minimalism has always been underlined by the minimalists themselves. Most notably, Dan Flavin, who dedicates thirty-nine statues to the founder of Constructivism, paid tribute to Tatlin by calling it a 'monument'.
“As Tatlin built his works from elements used in modern buildings (aluminum, glass and steel) in the early 20th century, Flavin chose commercial fluorescent light tubes as the material for his sculptures. Tatlin's choice of materials was an act focused on promoting the revolutionary aims of the new Russian republic. Flavin's choice of materials was a mix of historical reference to art and contemporary interpretation.” (Gompertz, 2015:290)
“Tatlin's slogan of 'real space, real material' came to the fore again in America in the 1960s and became the starting point for Minimalism. It is a question of using everyday materials and real space by aestheticizing technology in a way that Tatlin himself could not predict.” (Öndin, 2009:104)
“In 1964, Dan Flavin's 'Monument to Tatlin' consists of neon tubes. There is no artist-specific craftsmanship here, nor is there any reference to anything. Minimalists act from the view that the work is designed in the mind. For the work that is subject to the laws of the mind, what is certain in Minimalism is that the work is not a reflection of the personality of the artist.” (Öndin, 2009:104)
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Figure3.5.2.71. Dan Flavin, “monument” 1 for Tatlin, 1964, Fluorescent light and neon tubes, 243.8x58.7x10.8 cm private collection
Source: http://www.fotografya.gen.tr/TR,491/gulser-gunaydin.html
Figure3.5.2.72.Dan Flavin. The Diagonal 1963
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Figure3.5.2.73. Dan Flavin. Custom installation (Constantin Brancusiye)
Source:https://diaart.org/collection/collection/flavin-dan-the-diagonal-of-may-25-1963-to-constantin-brancusi-1963-1996-001 Kaynak:https://www.greelane.com/tr/be%c5%9feri-bilimler/g%c3%b6rsel-sanatlar/dan-flavin-4691787/
“Flavin felt that fluorescent lamps, icons of an era that offered only limited light, were 'anonymous and glare-free' by comparison. He loved their impersonal, mass-produced nature. He saw art as a material that connects the 'everyday concerns' of life. Fluorescent tubes were a way for Flavin to 'play with space', to change how a room looks, how people behave, and from 1963 they became the primary tool for making art for him.
His many works devoted to Tatlin, the first in 1964 and the last in 1990, became his best-known series. While there were variations on the design, they all had the same name: Monument to V. Tatlin.” (Gompertz, 2015:291)
3.5.3. Sol LeWITT
is an American artist who is identified with many movements such as conceptual art and minimalism and has been a pioneer in these fields. The techniques he uses are generally painting, pattern and design objects. Due to his artistic view, he preferred the term structure to sculpture. Le Witt, who entered into a dialogue with the reductionism and aesthetic content of minimalism, examined the permutations, changes and
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irregularities that occur during the transformation of conceptual forms into images or objects. (http://www.artnet.com/artists/sol-lewitt/)
After his black and white reliefs questioning the illusion he realized in the early 1960s, LeWitt stated that he had entered the process of abandoning painting, and that in 1963, he began to question the concept of inclusion and non-visual logic for the first time, with a series of black and white environments that overflowed 33 spaces he realized using symmetrical proportions. stated. The artist, who always preferred to work in series, stated that his next works were concerned with the physical aspects of the box.” (https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/ ) “For Sol LeWitt, the main thing was the idea: it was the idea that was the work of art, the realization of the idea was only a temporary pleasure. He didn't mind if an artwork he created was destroyed, the important thing was the piece of paper in his drawer on which he wrote the concept.” (Gompertz, 2015:292) Le Witt used square and cube forms, which are constantly reminiscent of the forms of the Russian avant-garde, and black, red and white as colors in his painting and installation works. “Producing in many different media, Le Witt reduced art to the most basic shapes and colors and created 'structures', which he prefers instead of drawings and sculptures. He tried to recreate the art by starting from the zero point using square and cube forms. While many artists of the same generation turned to industrial materials such as plexiglass or steel in the early 1960s, LeWitt turned to real sculptures, photographs or drawings; He focused on systems and concepts such as volume, transparency, sequences, variations, stagnation, and irregularity, which he expressed in words that could be translated or not. Artist Structures has produced open cube modules based on a ratio. From this format, the audience was able to understand the artistic language of the artist.” (https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/ )
He stated that the minimal paintings Sol LeWitt worked on walls or exhibited in large spaces came to the forefront with a graphical expression style dominated by horizontal,
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vertical, circular and diagonal lines of various thicknesses painted in a limited number of vibrant colors. (https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/ )
Sol LeWitt said in 1967: “Ideas need not be complex. Many successful ideas are ridiculously simple. Successful ideas often have an irresistible simplicity.” (https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/) “There is the idea that the simplicity at the origin of this minimalism should be in the main and fundamental elegance. Lewitt, by reducing art to a sharp formal simplicity, argued that individuality should be completely excluded by the use of repetition and permutations, and made the phenomenon of geometry perceptible. (https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/) Figure3.5.3.74. Sol LeWitt, Red Square, White Letters, 1962.TÜYB, 91.4x91.4cm, Museum. Ludwig,Cologne
Source: https://www.pinterest.pt/amp/pin/223350462743173261/
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Figure3.5.3.75. Sol Le Witt, Geometric structures, 1979
Source: https://www.lissongallery.com/artists/sol-lewitt
“The Figureabove is an example of 1979, with the serial development of his work titled ‘Buildings’ in 1965.” (https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/)
3.5.4 Carl ANDRE
“The American sculptor is one of the leading figures of the minimalism movement. Andre, who started to exhibit sculptures made from industrial materials such as brick, metal and cement blocks in the 1960s, drew attention in the "Basic Structures" exhibition held in New York in 1966. The main feature of Andre's work is the untouchedness of industrial and sometimes natural material and the horizontal composition. (https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/)
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Figure3.5.4.76. Carl Andre, Zinc Magnesium Plane, 1969, dimensions 182.9x182.9cm, Baltimore Museum of art, Baltimore
Source: https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/
Figure3.5.4.77. Carl ANDRE, Equivalent, VIII, 1966
Source: https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/
“In the 1970s, it came to the fore with the smear campaign it carried out against the British press because of the Tate Gallery's purchase of the work titled 'Equivalent VII'. Considered one of the pioneers of minimalist artists, Carl Andre creates repeating squares from prefabricated materials (including aluminum, zinc, copper, lead and iron tiles) in permanent frames on the floor. Andre's minimalist works, equivalents, all have the same height, mass, and volume, hence the name 'The Equivalent' to his collection.
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Andre equates sculpture with the perception of space, which is based on the direct relationship between the body of the viewer and the work of art, in accordance with his understanding of 'sculpture as space'. The work ceases to be an object of observation and turns into an object that can be walked on, listened to and felt.”
(https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/)
“Carl Andre's work is made of bricks that can be found in any building material shop; moreover, the way it is displayed by arranging these bricks can be found on a construction site. Here, the context of 'framing the ordinary object with the art space' is effective in the formation of the artwork. As modernism ages, context becomes content.” (https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/)
When we look at the material selection and display of the three-dimensional works created by the artist from materials that can be seen to be sold in any construction material store, we look at the artistic background of these applications, in the opposite corner, where the Russian avant-garde Vlademir Tatlin brought industrial materials together not in their own sense, but in another functional task, we've seen it in relief work.
“Andre said the following about his understanding of art: For me, sculpture should offer endless perspectives. There shouldn't be one place, or even several, where the audience has to stop to see it." (https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/)
3.5.5. Robert MORRIS
“American sculptor, conceptual artist and writer, considered one of the leading theorists of minimalism. He was influenced by expressionism, especially Jackson Pollock, in the early part of his painting career, which he started in the 1950s. He moved to New York in 1960. In this city, he gave performances to explore the human body in the void. He developed the same idea in his first minimalist sculpture, Two Columns (1961), and later in L Beams (1965). In the second half of the 1960s, Morris explored more elaborate industrial processes for minimalist sculpture, using materials such as aluminum and steel mesh.” (https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/)
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“In his writings, Robert Morris, while explaining some of the differences between painting and sculpture, drew attention to the fact that painting contains visual sensitivity, while sculpture is basically tactile. According to Morris, sculpture has always been a tangible and real object dealing with space, light and material. For Morris, the dimensions of the human body were the dimensions of the sculptural scale, the permanent measure of the sculptural scale. Morris advocated symmetry and abstraction, along with sequences, units, and other systems, by weeding out all surface details, traces of the artist's hand or the process of making, and color. Morris used the material to 'sculpt the space' and transformed the space as he wished by placing his works in different directions and stances according to the effect he wanted to give to the space. As seen in the images below, the mirrored faces of the four cubes are designed to produce complex and shifting interactions between gallery and audience.” (https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/)
Figure3.5.5.78. Robert Morris, Untitled, 1970 New York mirror and wooden cube
Source: https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/
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Figure3.5.5.79. Robert Morris, “Untitled/3Ls”, variable size installation, stainless steel, 1964, Green Gallery, New York
Source: https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/
3.5.6. Donald JUDD
“US sculptor, one of the pioneers of the Minimalism movement. Interested in painting in the 1950s, Judd turned to sculpture in the early 1960s and made monochrome reliefs, and from 1963 onwards he realized wooden three-dimensional units, which he called 'specific object', mounted on the wall with the logic of a series. Trying to have these units manufactured industrially in the following years, Judd has focused entirely on site-specific works since 1970. Judd's Collected Writings, covering the years 1959-75 and which are 36 important sources for the Minimalism movement, were published in 1976. In his writings, he describes his thoughts about his paintings: The main problem with the painting is that it is a flat rectangular surface hung on the wall. The rectangle is already a shape in itself; it is the form itself, it determines the order of what is in it and what will be put in it, and the borders are in works before 1946, rectangular works are a border and the painting ends at that border. The rectangular shape of the canvas is not emphasized, while the composition is constructed in a unity with respect to the edges of the painting; What is important is the relationship between the different parts of the Figureand these parts in terms of color and form.”
(https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/)
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Figure3.5.6.80.Donald Judd ,1992,60x79(artists' stance against torture)Source:https://www.istanbulsanatevi.com/sanatcilar/soyadi-j/judd-donald/donald-judd-iskenceye-karsi-sanatcilarin-durusu/
Figure3.5.6.81. Donald Judd 1980 Untitled, Repetitive 91.4x91.4x91.4 cm tate collection Institute of arts. Detroit
Source: https://kavrakoglu.com/cagdas-sanata-varis-115-minimalizm-2/
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In this repetitive, prefab work, Judd has arranged 10 identical pieces made of aluminum, colored hard plastic and steel, separating each piece with the same distance and volume, and placing them at regular intervals on the wall of the gallery.
“Donald Judd, for his work, said, 'If my work is recognized as reductivist, it's because what people think is necessary is not in what I do. It can be a nice gesture not to add anything extra if the abstraction can make the most effective use of the image of the form.' Thus, he stated that he tried to create a new relationship between volume, color and scale. Judd stated that he focused on the holistic perception of the repeated geometric shapes in the space.” (https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/)
3.5.7. Frank STELLA
“American painter, pioneer of youthful paint abstraction and minimalist painting. According to him, painting is the work that he carries out with white lines on a black background in his search for the perception of painting as a physical entity against the understanding of space. The reason why Frank Stella is one of the leading figures of the Minimalist movement of the 1960s can be found in the two problems he addressed to painting: The first of these problems is what painting is; The second is to figure out how to paint. Stella arrives at two problems that must be confronted: one spatial, the other methodical. The first problem is the most important, because for Stella painting is nothing more than a surface with paint on it, and transferring the visual act onto the canvas is powerful enough. Thus, he moved the painting out of the canvas. Considered one of the pioneers of minimal art, Frank Stella made abstract expressionist paintings in his first works, and later adopted a plain and simple expression with the abstract.” (https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/)
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Figure3.5.7.82. Frank Stella. Black Series II, 1967.
Source :https://www.wikiart.org/en/frank-stella/turkish-mambo-1967
“The artist emphasized the form of the canvas with black and white lines in his work, which he called 'black paintings', and later made different works in the form of the canvas with the colors of the lines. Frank Stella created the designs by repeating parallel relationships between geometric planes with simple, vertical and spaced lines. As can be seen below, the artist makes a name for himself with his compositions created with symmetry and rhythm by using black lines on a white canvas.” (https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/)
“Among these works, surprising for the period, is a series of parallel, equal-width black lines in which the raw canvas can be seen in thin strips. The term "Shaped Canvas" meaning "Shaped Canvas" was used for these works by Frank Stella. In these works, the perimeter of the canvas completely fits the interior structure. In this way, the painting becomes integrated with a continuous order without being dependent on a formal composition. The exhibitions and articles about him led to the international recognition of Frank Stella's art, thereby encouraging other painters to work on unusual canvas sizes.” (https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/)
“Ahu Antmen described Stella's shaped canvases in her book 'Western Art Movements of the 20th Century' as follows: Although it has not been named in the American art scene yet, a new artistic understanding different from American Abstract
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Expressionism and Pop Art started to be talked about in 1959. The '16 American Artists' exhibition at the York Museum of Modern Art was influential.” (Antmen,2008:183)
“The main feature that distinguishes the works of the artist, Frank Stella, who draws attention with his symmetrical striped black paintings in this exhibition, who paved the way to minimalism, is his effort to design a painting that is almost non-painting, his rejection of dyeing and colorism, which, in his own words, is not the artist's, but the traditional shape. Shaped Canvases, which intervened, thus causing the painting to be perceived as a kind of three-dimensional independent object, constituted an important step in reaching the 'specific object' of minimalism, which is neither painting nor sculpture, but shaped by seeking new solutions to the traditional problems brought up by both. ” (Antmen, 2008:183)
Ahu Antmen explains in her book Trends in 20th Century Western Art that the work of Stella and her friends was influenced by the work of constructivists. “While the 'specific object' of minimalism proposes a new artistic category, neither painting nor sculpture, it is not preceded in the historical process; Artists are also aware of this. While referring to Malevich with his attitude towards perceiving the art object in its own right, using and showing industrial material in its raw form, avoiding presenting the material as something other than itself, and transforming the discourse 'It is the function that determines the form' into a discourse like 'It is our needs that shape our tastes'. showed that they were following the path of the Russian constructivists.” (Antmen, 2008:184)
“Minimalist artists developed by reconsidering the formal innovations in Stella's works in the first half of the 1960s. They think that the reason why minimalist artists abandon two-dimensional canvas surfaces is because they see the canvas as limiting. Stella also used a plain geometry with a precise and clear-line symmetry on the surface of the canvas, in order to break the painting from its bonds that could make any connotation. Stella's own interpretations of her art narration are as follows: Painters working with geometry in Europe are after what I call "relational painting". The most important thing for them is to find a balance. If something is put in one corner, they immediately try to balance it with something else in the other corner. There is no relationality in our painting. For us, the issue of balance is not that important.”
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Figure3.5.7.83. Frank STELLA, 1967, Color Space Painting, Canvas, Polymer paint. Fluorescent paint, Harran II, Location, Saloman R. Guggenheim Museum, New York city, USA
Source :https://www.wikiart.org/en/frank-stella/harran-ii-1967
In addition, he designed his works in three dimensions and started to be considered as sculptures (although he was painting the pieces) because they were made of large pieces of metal. After he started using wood and other tools in the Polish Village Series, he started using aluminum as the main material in his paintings.” (https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/)
3.5.8. Daniel BUREN
“The French painter sought a new abstraction in the mid-1960s. He based his painting on concrete real objects (color, form). He has consistently used painted (solid color) and unpainted (gaps) vertical stripes in his upstretched canvas, banderole or panel works, often displayed in public places such as roads and subway stations. Buren's stated goal is to reduce painting to a fundamental state, thus breaking with the notions of traditional development in art and making painting an application of theory separate from ornamentation or craft.” (https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/ )
“Vertical transitional pieces of paper, 8.7 cm wide tapes; affixed to interior and exterior surfaces in white and color; walls, fences, shop windows, etc.; and or fabric, canvas backing, vertical stripes, white and colored strips 8.7 cm each, both ends 42 covered
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with opaque white paint. The succession of vertical bands is also arranged according to the method. It is always the same so that it does not create any composition to look into the surface or the space, or it creates a minimal or zero or neutral composition. These ideas are generally understood in connection with the arts, internal evaluations are not understood by the seeker.” (https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/)
“Within the unchanging structure of 8.7 cm vertical stripes in Buren's work, perhaps the most striking element, as it is 'changeable', is the variable colored stripes between the white stripes. The colors of these strips change, because if they don't, the result is that the space doesn't change either. He stated that it is the space that determines the colors. Buren gives primary importance to the space that the work will create and, if necessary, determines the dimensions and material of the work according to the characteristics of the structure in which it will be located. This is a result of his attitude towards illusionism in art and his understanding that emphasizes that the work of art should be fully incorporated into reality. Daniel Buren's works of art do not aim to create a sense of reality in the viewer. As it refuses to evoke any idea, it leaves the viewer alone with lines that are simple and do not represent any object or anyone. He gave importance to the simplicity and reductiveness of the works that appear to be the same as in his works.” (https://circlelove.co/minimalizm-akimini-baslatan-8-sanatci/)
Figure3.5.8.84. Daniel Buren 1970, Flamboyant canvas in white and red, 154.9 x 130.5 cm
Source:https://bortolamigallery.com/artist/daniel-buren/
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Figure3.5.8.85. Courtesy of Daniel Buren, Artist and Xavier Hufkens, Brussels.
Source. https://wsimag.com/art/65504-daniel-buren-geometries-colorees
Figure3.5.8.86. Daniel Buren, Cotton weave, Varying 8.7cm wide, striped acrylic paint on canvas.
Source: https://www.mam.paris.fr/en/oeuvre/murs-de-peintures
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3.6. Concrete Abstract “Contrary to other movements, there should not have been anything emotional, nationalistic or romantic in the concrete abstraction art movement. It has its roots in suprematism, constructivism and De Stijl. Its purpose is to be universally valid and clear; The artist does not give any place to illusionism or symbolism in his production with a conscious and rational mind. Art must be concrete: it is a whole in itself, it cannot be a vehicle for spiritual or political ideas. In practice, concrete art has become synonymous with geometric abstraction in both painting and sculpture. In art, real materials and real space are emphasized, squaring systems, geometric shapes and flat surfaces are loved. Artists often took scientific concepts or mathematical formulas as starting points. The result is delightful, thoughtful, impersonal, clear and precise works.” (Dempsey, 2019:86)
3.6.1. Max BILL (1908-1994) “After graduating from high school, the artist was determined to study art. Beginning to study at the Zurich School of Applied Art at the age of 16, Bill earned a living as an advertising graphic designer while attending school. After 1927: His Training at the Bauhaus School, Bill enrolled at the Bauhaus School of Design in Dessau, where Bill's tutors included Josef Albers, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Moholy Nagy, and Oskar Schlemmer. Bill was interested in almost every field of art (architecture, sculpture, painting, theatre). He experimented with metal as well as with paper. The concept of the Bauhaus School, "All arts and crafts are conditioned with each other", has been decisive in Bill's works of art. Returning to Zurich in 1930, he began working as an architect and freelance artist. In 1932 he joined the Parisian society Abstraction-Cration, which calls itself the reservoir of abstract art.” (http://sanatokuma.blogspot.com/p/bill-max.html) “After 1935; Bill realized his first plastic works in 1935, after examining the tape in the form of a ribbon named Möbius-Band (M. Stripe), the Defender of Concrete Art, named after the German mathematician August Ferdinand Möbius. After 1946: A "Rhombus" (rhombus) emerged when the Rhombus Shape was placed on the pointed end of a rectangular painting in the second half of the '40s. The ribbon or spiral motif,
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known from its plastics, has now entered his paintings (as, for example, in Energie der weissen Flaeche / The Energy of the White Plane, 1948-1949). Bill added pastel tones and mixed colors to his colorful works. In 1947, he was among the founders of the Advanced Culture Institute, which advocated the social duty of art. Bill; he saw art as equivalent to a mental use that would stimulate the human mind. In 1950, he was appointed as the rector of the Ulm Design College, of which he was one of the founders, a year later. His aim was to keep the traditions of the Bauhaus School alive in this institution. Accordingly, he emphasized the unity between architecture and art. When Bill could not get his ideas accepted, he left his post in 1956 and settled in Zurich. After the 60s: In his experiments with color and form, Bill worked primarily with colored squares and areas in his 60s paintings.” (http://sanatokuma.blogspot.com/p/bill-max.html) Figure3.6.1.87. Max Bill (Winterthur 1908–1994 Berlin) Strahlung aus blau, 1959–67, signed, dated and capped on the reverse, oil on canvas, 47 x 47 cm (diagonal), 33.5 x 33.5 cm (side), framed This work, Max Binia Jakob Bill Foundation, It is registered in Adlingswil and is accompanied by a photo certificate of authenticity. https://www.dorotheum.com/en/l/6745317/
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3.6.2.César DOMELA
“20. He was one of the most innovative and influential artists working in Europe in the middle of the century. Initially becoming a leading member of the De Stijl group with Mondrian and van Doesburg, Domela's approach transformed into three-dimensional abstraction, defined as "Enriched Constructivism" and "Méditation". He spent 1922-1923 in Switzerland, with the contrast of lines, He began to create a “transcendent art” with vertical and horizontal planes and above all.”
https://www.mchampetier.com/biography-C%C3%A9sar-Domela.html
Figure3.6.2.88. Cesar Domela, Copper, wood, paper, window film and paint, 1963
https://www.museopicassomalaga.org/cesar-domela-1900-1992
3.7. REINTERPRETATION OF AVANT-GARDE ARTWORKS
The most symbolic work of avant-garde Constructivist utopias is Vlademir Tatlin's Monument to the Third Communist International (1920). The monument is a machine, a tower in which rotating mechanical volumes overlap. Tatlin explains that while he was designing his tower, he set out from "the most dynamic form, the screw", which he saw as the symbol of time. This form is also reminiscent of the conical spirals of Albrecht Dürer, the father of geometric art philosophy. Its construction is made of glass and iron. According to Lissitzki, “Iron symbolizes the strength of the will of the proletariat, and glass the purity of conscience.” Tatlin states that the language of architecture and design he used expresses his age: A monument is a symbol of the age.
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By combining artistic and useful forms in it, I created a kind of synthesis between art and life.” (Artun, 2015:91)
“The Tatlin Tower was never thought to be built. It remained as a model shown in the exhibition held for the Third Congress of Soviets (1920). It was photographed on display during a parade in 1927, but has nonetheless become an icon of the constructivist design and architecture movement; Rodchenko influenced the monumental propaganda projects of avant-gardes such as Naum Gabo and Klutsis. It reminds the Tower of Babel with its form as well as symbolizing the harmony between people. And like the Tower of Babel it is a masterpiece of utopian architecture. Its main function is to 'produce utopia'." (Artun, 2015:94)
3.7.1 Alexei SHULGIN “Russian-born contemporary artist Shulgın and his friend, Russian-born Aristarkh Chernyshev, both live and work in Moscow as professors at Rodchenko Multimedia Schools. In 2011, they established a contemporary art group under the pseudonym Electroboutique. The group has a close relationship with design, critical of the consumer society, combining techniques, open source and proprietary solutions with the important art media of the past decades.” Source: (http://beopenfuture.com/community/alexei-shulgin/)
“Electroboutique group artists are the Russian avant-garde artist Vlademir Tatlin’s III. They are carrying out a work that refers to their work known as the International Monument or Tatlin Tower, and is created by distorting and reforming the original form of the 'Iphone' brand phone to obtain a spiral appearance. This work is an installation.” (http://beopenfuture.com/community/alexei-shulgin/)
“Although this work is a technological object used in a different sense in daily life, its image is aesthetically reinterpreted in today's art.
It also refers to how art in the early 20th century brought the design and consumption society together with the Russian avant-gardes, but also to the way in which the design spiral interprets the consumption phenomenon under the name of Re-Art in the 21st century societies. The spiral in question also refers to the wind of change and cyclical continuity of technological developments in a fictional way.
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Electroboutique's work also directly refers to the dynamic and mobile individual, while using the image of the mobile phone, which has become the most consumed object of capitalist societies. (Tokdil, Gültekin, 2019:641)
Figure3.7.1.89. Alexei Shulgin and Aristarkh Chernyshev (Electroboutique), iPhone 3G as Tatlins Tower (Iphone 3G as Tatlin Tower) (2011)
Source:https://www.vice.com/en/article/wnzyeq/electroboutique-present-a-twisted-take-on-consumerism-and-technology
3.7.2. Arcelor Mittal Orbit Figure90 by Anish KAPOOR and Cecil BALMOND:
Another similar fictional installation work inspired by the 'Tatlin Tower'. Similar to Electroboutique's work, this work presents a spiral view that opens upwards, but this time the place where it is exhibited is not a gallery but inside a park in London. Thus, there is a pattern of meaning, such as the intertwining of life and social life, and changing conditions (helical structure), relations of production (industrial objects and being made of metallic materials), scientific thought (the fact that the viewer can reach the top of the tower and the relation of the installation with real life) and aesthetics. reflects the intertwined continuity of the form (presented as an art object). (Tokdil, Gultekin, 2019:642).
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When the study is examined as a whole, an arrangement emerges in which the given is questioned, restructured, put into a non-static fiction, a changeable appearance is obtained and change is emphasized with this aspect, the apex is flattened to infinity and the power triangle is eliminated. The dynamic and pluralistic perspective of contemporary thought, as well as the eclectic structure of contemporary art, is reached, as well as with the principle of uncertainty.” (Tokdil, Gultekin, 2019:642)
Figure3.7.2.90. Arcelor Mittal Orbit by Anish KAPOOR and Cecil BALMOND (2012), Olympic Park, London
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArcelorMittal_Orbit
“Barnet Newman's series titled Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue has inspired many artists after him. While some of them produce new works based on the name, others bring up Rodchenko's understanding of color and form. Just as Newman became a source of reference for his successors, he was influenced by Russian avant-gardes, Malevich's abstract compositions, Rodchenko's red, yellow and blue triptychs. (Girgin, 2018:301)
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3.7.3 Richard JACKSON
“The artist has studied art and engineering, and like other artists, he has made applications by making technical and material changes over the names of works made in the past. This performance performed by Jackson turning on a motorcycle on a platform where red, yellow and blue colors are pumped to the surface (Figure91); takes its source from Newman, whom he emulates. Jackson's work does not exist alone in space. It is integrated with the space and presented together with intertwined mess The artist, who experienced an important problem in his own way while performing this performance, expresses the problem and the Newman effect in his interview with Dennis Szakacs with these words: "One of the pumps did not work and no yellow paint came in when I wanted the paint to come. It took me 10 or 15 minutes trying to fix the problem. While trying to solve this problem, I covered the Figurewith paint. Most painters, you know, put a little blue here and a little yellow, then sit back and light a cigarette before deciding where to put the red. This does not apply to me. At some point it doesn't matter where you put the red or the blue. It's about having a style and doing the same thing over and over again about stacked paintings… Newman knew there was nothing that could be done. This is what made him a great artist. It didn't just become a style.” (Girgin, 2018:303)
“When we look at Jackson's work, Rodchenko as paint and color, Newman as the name, and Pollock as the application, throwing the paint, pouring mixing." (Girgin, 2018:30 )
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Figure3.7.3.91.Richard Jackson, Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue, 2002, Performance, Installation,
Source: https://www.kunstraum-innsbruck.at/en/archives/exhibitions/plus_ultra
3.7.4. Andras GAL
, who is known for his monochrome paintings, gives this name to Newman's painting, which consists of four rectangular forms that he painted in yellow, by changing the question of Who Is Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue to Who Is Afraid of Yellow, as we can see in Figure92. It is clear from the name of the painting that it refers to Newman. Gal obtains textured images by using different tools such as brushes and knives in his paintings. Only color and texture are visible on the surface. It would not be wrong to say that what is less is more than enough for his paintings. When the viewer looks at these pictures, they want to see, touch and explore.” (Girgin, 2018:305)
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Figure3.7.4. 92. Andras GAL, Who’s Afraid of Yellow, 2007, Four Piece Installation, 110X340 cm, Contemporary Art Museum-Ludwig Museum, Budapest
Source:http://andrasgal.com/content/15-216jpg
3.7.5 Nedko SOLAKOV.
Newman's work in Figure93, in which blue, yellow and red plates displaced by the color sequence are brought side by side and some scribbles are made on them, the artist named the painting 'Some Beautiful Things to Have Fun While You Live Out' between irony and fun, art and life. creates a balance. This work of Solakov, who mostly uses writing and drawing together in his applications, turns into a part of daily life. Art and life go hand in hand. The artistic ground becomes the surface on which some messages are given and where the artist writes his own story.” (Girgin, 2018:305)
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Figure3.7.5.93.Nedko Solakov, Some Good Things to Enjoy While You Live, from the 2008 series, a section from the installation, mixed material
Source: https://www.galleriacontinua.com/exhibitions/the-artist-collectors-dream-a-nice-thing-290
3.7.6 Ernest EDMONDS
The artist is a pioneering artist in computer art and its varieties, algorithmic art, interactive art since the late 1960s. His work is represented at the Victorio and Albert Museum as part of the National Archive of Computer-Based Art and Design.
With the computer program Edmonds developed herself, she produces colorful works consisting of geometric shapes whose origin is connected to the constructivist tradition.
his art; explores algorithms used to communicate with color, time, communication and interaction. He first used it in his own practice in 1968, first exhibiting an interactive piece of art in 1970, and a generative time-based computer work in 1985. Edmonds is an expert in Human-Computer Interaction, specializing in promoting human creativity.
Time-based generative works (Video Structures) were developed from 1980 and were first exhibited at the London exhibition space in 1985 with paintings developed using geometric and procedural hand systems.” http://www.ernestedmonds.com/www/Contact/about.htm
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Figure3.7.6.94. Ernest Edmonds and David Thomas,2005, Conny Dietzschold Gallery, LC #3, responding to sound,
Source:http://www.ernestedmonds.com/www/Art/Recent/RecentColourNet.htm
Figure3.7.6.95. Ernest Edmonds shaped prints are similar to shaped paintings except they are all digital prints on aluminum,2017, Venice.
Source:http://www.ernestedmonds.com/www/Art/Recent/RecentColourNet.htm
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3.7.7 Mary HEILMAN
“The artist's work has a background of abstract paintings, ceramics and furniture. Heilman says that by combining the legacies of Willem de Kooning and Josef Albers in her work, she combines gesture and sharp abstraction in a single painting, living the Neo-Geo phase.” https://art21.org/read/mary-heilmann-every-piece-has-a-backstory/“
“Mary looked at everyday objects, industrial production, types of references to the spatial environment, and geometric forms in the works of Flavin and Judd. But while she was making these observations, she was producing her own works in a completely different way, to begin with, she was painting with a softer application, usually using her fingers.” (Hilarie M. 2017:3) Figure3.7.7.96.Mary Heilmann
Source:https://www.303gallery.com/artists/mary-heilmann?view=slider#5
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4. CONCLUSION
“The subject was started by explaining the concept of Avant-garde in the Graduation Thesis of Proficiency in Art titled "The Effects of Russian Avant-garde Artists on Abstract Art at the Beginning of the 20th Century". The emergence and basic characteristics of the art groups that prepared the cultural basis for the formation of the Russian Avant-garde, which shaped the art of the 20th century, were examined within the scope of the material, philosophical-ideological and aesthetic conditions that formed the avant-garde.
The historical development of Suprematism and Constructivism, the art movements created by the artists who are considered to be the pioneers of abstract painting of the Russian Avant-garde, their characteristics, the life stories of the pioneer painters and others, and the development of their understanding of art were examined.
Russian Avant-garde has been a pioneer in the development of abstract art in its own country and in other countries, and has presented a new language in the context of subject and content in the works of art it has produced for artists in other countries.
Artists from other countries who saw the works of avant-garde artists in Europe and the United States were influenced by what they saw, and there were artists who produced works of art whose technical and aesthetic roots can be found in the Russian Avant-garde.
The historical order of the artists and art movements that existed in the development process of abstract art was tried to be determined, and according to this order, examples of art movements, artists and works that emerged after the avant-garde were given.
The effects of the Early 20th Century Russian Avant-garde on abstract art can be grouped under many intellectual and aesthetic aspects. As I started my thesis research, I found many resources on the subject. I have reviewed and written these sources in order of historical importance. I realized that the answers to the questions I sought in my thesis were sometimes based on the personal explanations of the artists and sometimes on the basis of the visuals of the works. E.g; When Flavin said "monument" for Tatlin, he was following the path of Tatlin, the founder of the Constructivism
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movement, initiating the style we call installation, and at the same time making his work remembered with the name of a master.
The style used by the Russian Avant-garde is so strong and impressive that although a century has passed since them, artists from all over the world do not shy away from the similarity of content, technique or name, which reminds the works of the Russian Avant-garde, even today, in their works that we call contemporary art. It is seen that they are influenced enough to repeat the style of expression they think and the works they see strong in accordance with their own language of expression.
Constructivist Avangart's biggest dream was to include artists in the design phase of objects necessary for daily life, and to combine production with art and to see the artist as a producer. Artists are also intellectuals. They also worked as designers and designers in factories. After Avangart, many artists worked in factories in the mass production of works such as ceramics designed for daily use, fabric pattern design and furniture design.
After the historical avant-garde, after the 1970s, it became so easy to access information thanks to communication and computer technology that developed at an incredible speed that it is possible to reach information about many works of art, to find and see their visuals, and to be an accessible source of information at any time.
In the 21st century we live in today, it has succeeded in bringing all kinds of art activities that are open to viewing with virtual tours of every museum open to all humanity, out of art institutions, and works of art have become accessible to every person. Combining art and life was the biggest dream of this avant-garde and this dream came true.
It can be said that the uncompromising character of the avant-garde came to an end with Neo-Avantgarde and contemporary artists. While they were producing their works, they established a historical bond with the avant-garde in their style and produced works, but they came to the point of selling their works to galleries and museums for millions of dollars in order to be economically strong. The most interesting example of this is the artist who broke the record for a canvas of object-hater Malevich to be the most expensive art object sold by the auction house. The work was sold by Phillips in New York for $17 million in 1919.
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Art movements of Suprematism and Constructivism had announced that the tradition of representation had come to an end in the development process of European art. Traditional methods of painting and sculpture had changed and caused the birth of many different art movements that came one after another.
The style of the Russian Avant-garde, which influenced all world artists accepted in Europe and the USA, has changed the path to many art movements aesthetically and conceptually, including Minimalism Art Movement, Monochrome Painting, Abstract Expressionism, Graphic Arts.
In the first twenty years of the 20th century, in the period of the Russian avant-garde, it was not possible for the artists not to be under the influence of the rapidly industrializing world and the world wars between countries. Many artists were interested in Far East, Kabbalah and Theosophical Thought systems against materialism. First of all, Wassily Kandinsky, with his book On Spirituality in Art, became the source for many artists who came after him, especially artists such as Rothko, Reinhardt, and Klein, to find their intellectual foundations in the production of their works.
Among the subjects that we examined and explained in the thesis, we gave many examples of artists who were influenced by the visual aesthetic language of the artists of the Russian Avant-garde. While producing the works of art of many of the artists we call contemporary today; The fact that they are one of the most well-known works of art history produced a hundred years ago, because of the form, technique and I think most importantly, because of the words that the work says to the viewer, comes from the technical and aesthetic power of that work that speaks beyond the centuries.
Each member of the avant-garde did their best to say something new in the name of art. Today's artists, as Lissitzky said, will learn a lot from art made of pure colors without objects, which have been brought to the zero point and without recognizable objects, and will carry the art to a much further point by saying minus 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
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5. ANALYSIS OF THE LYRICAL ABSTRACT TENDENCIES AND PICTURES IN DİLEK KOCAOĞLAN DAĞTEKIN'S PICTURES
The language of expression of Dilek Kocaoğlan Dağtekin's paintings appears as lyrical abstraction. The roots of historical inspiration in his paintings are based on the narrative language of his works, which is from the series of paintings that Wassily Kandinsky called composition.
In his own words, when we were told to paint on the basis of the works of painters we found close to us in terms of artistic style, we examined the paintings of master painters in the second year, when we were undergraduate students at the Özdemir Altan Atelier, which is the fifth workshop in the painting department of Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University today, while we were examining the paintings of the Russian avant-garde artist Kandinsky. I was impressed by his abstract paintings, which he reached by experimenting during the process he started with paintings. It was more effective for me than other painters to see that he used all kinds of pictorial elements, graphic symbols, and abstract forms reminiscent of Japanese calligraphy, as if showing a quick movement in these abstract and objectless paintings.
Her use of colors and forms in her paintings in defined contrasts, the feeling of depth created in the void, the use of primary and secondary colors, and most importantly, the forms created imaginatively, guided me while constructing my own paintings.
My purpose while painting is to transfer the pictorial images in my mind to the canvas. For this, I do all the pictorial elements we know when painting, sometimes using traditional tools, paint brushes, and sometimes going beyond traditional painting materials. There are also lyric poetic fluid forms in the content of my paintings, in geometric forms such as square, circle, triangle.
I can also use symbolic forms with which we can establish connections from the real world we live in. The symbolic forms I use are to remind the viewer of an emotion or a thought between the abstract and the real world, to make them notice. While painting every pictorial element, line, stain, light dark color tones, color contrasts, I sometimes design and create it myself, sometimes by coincidence.My painting works are focused on color and form rather than linear pattern understanding. When creating content in
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the picture, I use the paint sometimes as thin transparent, sometimes to create a thick texture. I do not think that it is necessary to start from a familiar object in order to describe a situation on canvas like Kandinsky's by following the abstract painting path of Kandinsky in my painting works. The first brush stroke, perhaps a shape, even a shadow on the canvas can initiate the pictorial subject for the formation of paintings.
In my paintings, I sometimes like to use the window view with symbolic expression, intertwined square shapes and metaphors such as bondage and bondage. In my paintings, there is no recognizable object image at first sight, but the use of transparent paint that gives the effect of light and dark, the effect of transparency, color applications that seem to stand on top of each other, color contrasts lead the viewers to follow the forms in the painting through colors and shapes.
It is seen that the artist constructs his paintings in the context of relational aesthetics and uses the basic painting elements in a balanced way. On the canvas, light-dark, warm-cold color, large-small, narrow-wide, the contrasts of the pieces are considered. The paint drips used in Jackson Pollock's style are used as necessary as the moving dynamic appearance provided by the forms. This gives his paintings a different aesthetic appearance. The artist works in an open form understanding, every color has an expression that seems to have a continuation extending to infinity.
Figure5.97. Kandinsky's Composition VII
Kandinsky's composition VII painting work, which we see above, consists of large-sized abstract forms in which the Munich period works two meters by three meters, but
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we can see, albeit indistinctly, human motifs, people who go on boats, bearing figurative traces that Kandinsky could not completely leave during the transition to abstract painting, these pictorial motifs are still It is one of the memories of Kandinsky, who hides memories from the visible world, from his life in Moscow from the days of the civil war. With his interest in Theosophy, he is a painting that deals with mystical subjects such as the resurrection, the flood, and the last judgment. He made more than thirty drawings and watercolors and at least ten oil painting sketches for this painting.
Kandinsky uses color contrasts in all his paintings to reflect forms as if they are floating freely, graphic symbols placed between the shapes allow transitions between forms. The graphic stylization, reminiscent of Japanese calligraphy, contrast between bright color clusters is clearly emphasized in this painting. It distributes it evenly on the canvas. It has worked with light dark and warm cold color harmony.
Figure5.98. Dilek Kocaoğlan DAĞTEKİN, 100x70
When we look at Dilek Kocaoğlan DAĞTEKİN's painting numbered ninety-eight, which we see above, the starting point of the subject is the painting of Kandinsky named composition VI. In Kandinsky's painting, he creates a single color in large, small,
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medium-sized pieces by dispersing the colors evenly. Because he knows that cold colors do not tend to stand out like warm colors in the eye perception, the focal point of the painting becomes dark blue tones.
In Dilek Kocaoğlan DAĞTEKİN's painting, the focal point is dark, with black or blue, warm and light-toned colors in the foreground. Dilek Kocaoğlan DAĞTEKİN uses stencils she prepared herself to obtain pictorial images that cannot be applied with traditional paint application.
Figure5.99. Dilek K. Dağtekin, Abstract composition, 100x85, M.T.O.C., 2021
The imaginative form formation we see closely in Figure99 is also of Kandinsky origin, and the round and circle forms are the pictorial forms used by Kandinsky.
In the world we live in, we see and witness the contradictions and contradictions that exist in front of our eyes almost every day. In the nature around us, we experience very variable situations such as the colors we see in light or dark tones, the emotional states we feel as warm or cold, the objects we see horizontally and vertically, and how fast or
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heavy we say, and of course there are very different examples of these in the world we live in. Although these can be seen as physical phenomena in the material sense, they evolve into abstract expression forms in the art of painting and appear as works of art.
You can find the explanation that the last 20th century is the age of speed and the 21st century is the digital age in every book containing art movement information. As Kandinsky says in his writings, "Each artist, of course, carries the characteristic features of the age she/he lives in, and adds basic art knowledge to her/his artistic practices and paints what is inside her/him, what she/he should be, with the inner need she/he carries.
Dilek Kocaoğlan DAĞTEKİN is the same as an artist, painting is an inner necessity for her. Color preferences in her paintings are formed by the deliberate use of color contrasts to strengthen the narrative language of the painting. The artist applies forms that go in opposite directions, which seem to be in opposition to each other, so that the sense of movement and rhythm prevails in her painting. Understanding the language of the artist's abstract painting is actually not that difficult. Deciphering the language of abstract painting actually means understanding and deciphering the language of the world we live in every day, which is built on contrasts.
Figure5.100. Dilek Dağtekin, Abstract K-pattern, 40x40, M.T.O.C., 2020
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The square form on the canvas used by the Russian avant-garde, Kazimir Malewich in Suprematism also gives the idea of equality and balance in itself as a form. Dilek K. Dağtekin also uses the square form to refer to the avant-garde while using canvas.
The artistic expression style of the 20th century broke away from the objective reality with the path opened by the Russian Avant-garde and first started with the abstraction of various objects and reached the abstract with the creation of mental images. In this context, Dilek Kocaoğlan DAĞTEKİN's paintings can be shown as examples of imaginary abstract painting, images are endless and they will continue to be the subject of abstract painting.
Figure5.101.Dilek K.Dağtekin,Abstract composition,50x50,Mixed Media on
Canvas,2020
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Figure102.Dilek K.Dağtekin,Abstract composition,100x70 ,M.T.O.C.,2021
Figure5.103.Dilek K.Dağtekin,Abstract composition,50x40,Mixed Media on Canvas,2020
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Figure5.104.Dilek K.Dağtekin,Abstract composition,50x50,Mixed Media on Canvas,2020
Figure105.Dilek K.Dağtekin,Abstract composition,50x50,Mixed Media on Canvas,2020
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Figure5.106.Dilek K.Dağtekin,Abstract composition,50x50,Mixed Media on Canvas,2020
Figure5.107..Dilek K.Dağtekin,Abstract composition,50x70 ,M.T.O.C.,2021
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Figure5.108.Dilek K.Dağtekin ,Abstract composition 50x70,Mixed Media on Canvas,2020
Figure5.109.Dilek K.Dağtekin,95x75, Abstract composition Mixed Media on Canvas,2020
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Figure5.109.Dilek K.Dağtekin,Abstract composition,50x50,Mixed Media on Canvas,2020
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May 17, 2000 Avcılar, Barış Manço Cultural Center Art teachers group exhibition.
July 11-July 21, 2016. Zaman VI (hayatta kal, survive!) group painting exhibition at Yeditepe.
11-25 February 2017 Halka Art Project “Do You Have an Idea?” group exhibition.
4-30 November 2020, “FORMATION” Group Painting Exhibition.