Artistic Styles

Style refers to a particular kind of appearance in works of art. It is a characteristic of an individual artist or a collective relationship based on an idea, culture, or artistic movement. Following is a list and description of the most common styles in art:

Naturalistic

Naturalistic style uses recognizable images with a high level of accuracy in their depiction. Naturalism also includes the idealized object: one that is modified to achieve a kind of perfection within the bounds of aesthetics and form. William Sydney Mount's painting The Bone Player gives accuracy in its representation and a sense of character to the figure, from his ragged-edged hat to the button missing from his vest. Mount treats the musician's portrait with a sensitive hand, more idealized by his handsome features and soft smile.

Abstract

Abstract style is based on a recognizable object but which is then manipulated by distortion, scale issues, or other artistic devices. Abstraction can be created by exaggerating form, simplifying shapes, or the use of strong colors. Let's look at the three landscapes below with varying degrees of abstraction in them to see how this style can be so effective. Marsden Hartley uses abstraction to give the spare Landscape, New Mexico, a sense of energy. Through the rounded forms and gestures in treatment, we can discern hills, clouds, a road, and some trees or bushes.

Marsden Hartley, Landscape, New Mexico, c. 1916, pastel on paper. The Brooklyn Museum, New York

Georgia O'Keeffe's Birch and Pine Trees – Pink employs abstraction to turn the painting into a tree-filled landscape dominated by a spray of orange paint suggesting a branch of birch leaves at the top left. Vasily Kandinsky's Landscape with Red Spots, No. 2, goes further into abstraction, releasing color from its descriptive function and vastly simplifying forms. The rendering of a town at the lower left is reduced to blocky areas of paint and a black triangular shape of a hill in the background. In all three of these, the artists manipulate and distort the 'real' landscape as a vehicle for emotion.

It is important to note the definition of "abstract" is relative to cultural perspective. That is, different cultures develop traditional forms and styles of art they understand within the context of their own culture and which are difficult for other cultures to understand. So what may be "abstract" to one could be more "realistic" in style to another? For example, the Roman bust of Sappho below looks very real from a western European aesthetic perspective. Under the same perspective, the African mask would be called "abstract." Yet to the African culture that produced the mask, it would appear more realistic. In addition, the African mask shares some formal attributes with the Tlingit Groundhog Mask from Canada's west coast. It is possible these two cultures would see the Roman bust as the "abstract" one. So it is important to understand artworks from cultures other than our own in the context in which they were originally created.

Roman bust of Sappho. Capitoline Museum, Rome

African mask

Questions of abstraction can also emerge from something as simple as our distance from an artwork. View and read about Fanny/Fingerpainting by the artist Chuck Close. At first glance, it is a highly realistic portrait of the artist's grandmother-in-law. You can zoom in to see how the painting dissolves into a grid of individual fingerprints, a process that renders the surface very abstract. With this in mind, we can see how any work of art is essentially made of smaller abstract parts that, when seen together, make up a coherent whole.

Non-Objective

Non-objective imagery has no relation to the 'real' world – that is – the work of art is based solely upon itself. In this way, the non-objective style is completely different from the abstract, and it is important to make the distinction between the two. This style rose from the modern art movement in Europe, Russia, and the United States during the first half of the 20th century. Pergusa Three, by American artist Frank Stella uses organic and geometric shapes and strong colors against a heavy black background to create a vivid image. More than with other styles, content issues are associated with a non-objective work's formal structure.

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Source: Christopher Gildow, http://opencourselibrary.org/art-100-art-appreciation/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.