Magazine

The Psychology Behind Shape and Form

Why does abstract art appeal? Often considered to be a visual language of shape, color and form, there is something very particular in the attraction to an abstract work of art. Several theories e...

How Analytical Cubism Prefigured Pure Abstraction

What seem like opposite forces in the world actually compliment each other. So it was in the turn of the 20th Century between two major, simultaneous trends in the world of art: analytical cubism ...

The Week in Abstract Art – Pollock-Palooza

For fans of 20th Century abstraction this is a good year. Two major exhibitions open this month: In New York, Robert Motherwell: The Art of Collage is on view now through 21 May at Paul Kasmin Gal...

Hiscox Online Art Trade Report 2016: A (slightly self-celebrating) review by IdeelArt

Since 2013, the insurance company Hiscox (an underwriter at Lloyd's of London) has produced an annual report analyzing trends in the online art trade. The unbiased report is compiled with help fro...

Photographing Paintings: How to Take a Good Photograph of Your Art ?

Whether you want to create prints of your work, share it online or simply keep a personal record before selling it, knowing how to take the perfect picture is vital. With photographs often being t...

Picasso Portraits Coming to the National Portrait Gallery This Autumn

Pablo Picasso created more than 150,000 individual works of art in his lifetime. Nearly 20,000 of those works were paintings, and a shocking number of those were portraits. This autumn, the Nation...

How Paul Strand Wielded Photography into a Channel for Abstraction

It’s strange to think that some people consider photography to be a purely technical craft, and not art. An artist invented the medium after all. In the hands of photography’s most famous practiti...

Art Packaging

In an ever-increasing cosmopolitan and international art world, in which online platforms like IdeelArt are facilitating sales to and from all corners of the globe, artwork can travel thousands of...

Discover the Mysteries of Orphism in Painting

In the field of abstract art, mysticism and science sometimes become unwitting bedfellows. One example is Orphism, a brief and sometimes misunderstood art movement from the early years of the 20th...

Christine Macel Selected to Direct 57th Venice Biennale

Back on April 9th of 1893, the Venice City Council voted in favor of a resolution to hold an art show. At first it was only going to include Italian artists, but after some debate the council deci...

The Week in Abstract Art – Can You Read My Mind?

Denver’s Clyfford Still Museum recently announced it’s loaning nine works to London’s Royal Academy of Art to be exhibited next fall. Still was specific in his will about how his work could be sho...

Blue and Abstract Art

For centuries, the color blue has been a source of fascination for artists and art lovers alike. Difficult and expensive to procure, blue was seldom seen outside the clothing of royals, religious ...

Debra Ramsay and Sarah Hinckley Take Part in Two Separate Perceptive Exhibitions

Conceptual curation is a way of bringing together artists who may not normally show together in order to explore concepts, ideas or realms that are universal in their work. Today we highlight Idee...

What Makes Someone Choose a Piece of Art ?

Art is uniquely personal, not only to the artist who creates it, but also to the person viewing it. Nowhere is this truer than with abstract art. Art is an extension - a reflection of - the vie...

Art Informel - The Painterly Reflection of Post-War Europe

The artists associated with Art Informel are sometimes called the international equivalents of the Abstract Expressionists. Coming to prominence in the years following World War II, they rejected ...

What is Cubism - A True Art Revolution?

There are many ways to answer the question, “What is Cubism?” What is Cubism in art? It’s a style of painting in which the subject matter is presented as geometric forms shown from multiple simult...

Tachisme – Abstraction Lyrique

Tachisme, also known as abstraction lyrique, is a movement named after a word derived from the French tache, a word meaning stain or spot. It is a French style of non-geometric abstract painting t...

The Influence of Abstract Art on Modern and Contemporary Design

Abstract art designs can be found everywhere, on fashion, furniture, architecture, advertising, and just about every other product of contemporary design. Whether it’s a shoe line inspired by Op A...

The Week in Abstract Art – Together Here in the Future Past

Is there such a thing as history if the story is incomplete? What’s the point of compiling a timeline if some events and accomplishments are edited out? And how can we make sure our names don’t ge...

What is A Painting ?

In 1890, French painter Maurice Denis famously said that “a painting –before being a warhorse, a naked woman, or some story or other – is essentially a flat surface covered with colours assembl...

Artists Peter Soriano and Harald Kröner Featured at Drawing Now Paris

If you’re wondering about the status of contemporary drawing look to Drawing Now Paris, the world’s foremost contemporary drawing fair. This prestigious annual event returns on 30 March, again hig...

How Monochrome Paintings of Yves Klein Shifted the Focus in Art

Labels are relative. When a painter paints perfect likenesses of trees and boats and mountains, most people call those paintings representational, because they supposedly represent reality. When a...

AAA Stands for American Abstract Artists - Heralds of Abstract Expressionism

If you highly regard Rothko, appreciate Pollock, are crazy for de Kooning, frankly love Frankenthaler or are mad about Martin, get your party hat out. This year marks the 80th birthday of American...

Contemporary Abstract Artists to Watch - Part II

Last week, we brought you profiles of ten contemporary abstract artists that have caught our eyes while attending art fairs, biennials, gallery openings, museum exhibitions and auctions recently. ...

How to hang abstract art

There is so much beauty out in the world that it's hardly surprising we want to capture a little of it and bring it into our homes by hanging art. But not everything in the world is clear; there i...

There Are No Bubbles in Art

Although there has been a number of economic crashes (from the Great Depression back in 1929, throughout the Dot-com bubble in the 1990s, and onto the Housing bubble in 2008), the one that made a ...

The Week in Abstract Art – Interchanging Connections

This week is about changing perceptions: a French conceptual artist partners with a global corporation to make something beautiful; a Dutch abstractionist reveals his romantic side; a Western-cent...

Tenesh Webber Work on Display at Schema Projects

For Schema Projects’ current exhibition Passing Through, curator Jeanne Heifetz assembled 12 artists who work with thread, “whether as dimensional line, to embody time, or to map the world's hidde...

How Action Painters Changed the Idea of Painting

What is a painting? Some would say a defined, two-dimensional surface on which a painter applies medium in order to create recognizable imagery. But many painters find that definition limiting, an...

What is Conceptual Painting?

Every work of art was once just an idea in somebody’s head. That’s a funny thought considering how fleeting ideas can be, and how difficult it can be to turn even the best ideas into reality. Conc...

Contemporary Abstract Artists to Watch - Part I

As the global art world becomes more intimately connected, the number of captivating contemporary abstract artists entering the market continues to increase. It can seem overwhelming to keep track...

The Week in Abstract Art – Adventures in Ink

There’s an old saying about the importance of writing things down: “Faded ink is better than a sharp mind.” Thanks to the generosity of the Zentrum Paul Klee (ZPK), anyone with an Internet connect...

Toronto’s Division Gallery Presents New John Monteith Exhibition

The minimal, sleek, yet industrial façade of Toronto’s Division Gallery speaks John Monteith's language. It’s a contemporary architectural language of paradox; layered; rough yet intentional; raw ...

The Far-Reaching Influence of Momentous Modern Abstract Paintings

Modern is tricky. If I say I want a modern apartment I mean one suited toward today’s lifestyle: one that’s wired, green, open and light-filled. If I say I love modern abstract paintings, I mean o...

How to Paint Abstract Art? Become a Master.

Before we get started, let’s just make sure everyone’s in the right place. This is a master’s guide on how to paint abstract art. We’ll be skipping the basics like brush techniques, color theory, ...

Color and Form in Abstract Watercolor Paintings

When an abstract painter has an idea, certain choices must be made before it can manifest as a painting. Foremost is what kind of paint to use. Each medium possesses unique qualities that affect c...

The Week in Abstract Art – Give it Away Now

The best thing about collecting art is living each day surrounded by the artwork you love. The second best thing about collecting art is giving it all away! This week, we look at some great people...

if ART Gallery Presents Expressive Geometric Abstraction of Ashlynn Browning for the Fourth Time

The straightforward sincerity in Browning’s work is echoed in the way she speaks about her process. “My goal is to strike a balance of structure and accident,” Browning says. Part of her process i...

How Colorist Painters Speak With Hues

What a colorist gives us isn’t a yellow that says, “Yellow,” or even a yellow that says, “Mountain,” or “Tree,” but rather a yellow that says, “Eternity,” or “Fierceness,” or “Kindness,” or “Power...

The Story of the Abstract Landscape in Art

Abstraction is art’s Eminem. It came to challenge our perceptions. Consider what abstraction did for landscape painting. For centuries landscapes ranked pitifully low (just above animal paintings)...

Joanne Freeman Interview

Elegant white canvases embellished with only a few carefully designed loops of different colors, exuding a certain rhythm of peacefulness and harmony. The less-is-more principle is evident in the ...

Poetic Charge of an Abstract Print

At an opening of your favorite abstract painter’s work, you’re immediately drawn to a painting, like a happy moon being pulled toward a welcoming star. You know you want it. Then you see something...

The Week in Abstract Art – What Do You See in Me?

Call Webster’s! We invented a word! While browsing Christie’s online print auction this week, we paused to Google image search a Frank Stella print. That unexpectedly turned up images of the DeSti...

Abstract Painters that Marked the 20th Century

Every painter knows there is no such thing as “the best painter”. Someone would oppose this claim, but it’s true – art is about aesthetical perception, and it’s impossible that all human beings ha...

Early Abstract Art as the Visual Embodiment of an Idea

One of the ironies of early abstract art is that so many people suspected it of being haphazard, random or meaningless. Viewers conditioned to accept only objective representations of the material...

Today's Artists Inspired by Rothko's Color Field Painting Style

Silence is so accurate.-Mark Rothko As we seek out today’s inheritors of Mark Rothko’s iconic color field painting style, we can’t only search for work that looks similar to his. We must also purs...

Abstract Art as a Style of Choice

“The past is never dead. It's not even past.”-William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun The word contemporary refers to the now. But can we have multiple contemporaneties? Thanks to the legacy of artist...

The Week in Abstract Art - Pollock, De Kooning and New Trends

This week we contemplate the status of the 2016 art market. We also take a moment to celebrate abstract art on many different levels, from a show in Zürich of the sublime work of IdeelArt’s own Da...