Buying Precisionism
Paintings
Also known as Cubist Realism, and related to the Art Deco
movement, Precisionism was developed in the United States after
World War I. The term for this movement was coined in the
1920s, and influenced by the Cubist and Futurist movements; the
main themes for these paintings were mainly regarding
industrialization and modernization of the American
landscape. These elements were depicted with the use of
precise and sharply defined geometrical shapes, a reverence for
the industrial age, but with social commentary not a directly
fundamental part.
The degrees of abstraction ran the spectrum as some works
had photo realistic qualities, and though the movement had no
presence outside of the United States, the artists that made up
this particular grouping were a closely knit collective
remaining active through to the 1930s. Georgia O’Keefe
remained as one of the leading proponents of this style, and
stayed so for many years afterwards until the 1960s, her
husband was a highly regarded mentor for the group. In a
post post-Expressionist phase of life in the art world,
Precisionism has affected and influenced the movements of magic
realism which utilizes aspects such as juxtaposing of forward
movement with a sense of distance, and pop art in which themes
from mass culture were used to define art much there
forward.
Just after the 1950s began, the movement of pop art was
clear in places such as Britain and the United States, and
employed elements of advertising and comic books to create a
foundation that might have been taken as a reaction to the then
popular movement of abstract expressionism. Though the
term wasn’t coined until 1958, it was later linked with Dadaism
from the beginning of the century, and at one point was called
Neo-Dada because of the strong influence from artist Marcel
Duchamp. Later affecting artists like Andy Warhol and
Jasper Johns, bringing the definition to come to mean one of
low-cost mass-produced and gimmicky artwork, and stressing
everyday values with common sources like product packaging and
celebrity photographs.
By exploring that fraction of everyday imagery, the artists
found themselves working with contemporary consumer culture,
and this became apparent in parts of Britain, Spain, and Japan
around the same point in time. In Britain in particular,
where pop art seemed to stem from at that point in 1947, and
many works began blurring the boundaries between art and
advertising. Whereas in Spain, the movement became
interrelated with the “new figurative”, the work arose from the
roots of informalism which began to be a critical aspect in
this part of the world.
In Japan, pop art has been seen and utilized throughout much
of the country’s native artwork through such means as Anime and
the “superflat” styles of art, and became the means through
which the artists could further critique their own culture
through a more satirical lens. When choosing a
stimulating piece by these artists, it may be a more
invigorating exercise to find some of those other artists to
whom these later artists owe much of their inspiration towards
their own work, and Precisionism is just as appropriate a place
to start for you as anywhere else in the artistic spectrum.
Today, Precisionism can be seen as fundamental influence in
commercial and popular art, but cannot be too overlooked as
being one of a few different movements to affect our present
day stance on art’s utility and functions. With the
postmodern present coming to light, maybe we shall once again
be drawn back to the past that we have come to take for granted
too often, and reveal a new age to define a new century of
experience.
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