HARD EDGE PAINTING
Hard-Edge Painting reinforces the idea of the canvas or paper as a field of abstract forms. Similar to the interrelationship of colorful forms that we find in Color Field Painting and Abstract Expressionism, this abstract movement also emphasizes the flatness of the surface (either canvas or paper). But that's it! Hard-Edge Painting shows us clean-edged, monochromatic areas of color that defy AbEx and Color Field's freewheeling ambiguity in favor of a detached clarity of vision. Cooler yet still spiritual, it can track its influences way back to Synthetic Cubism, Park Avenue Cubism, De Stijl, Suprematism and the Bauhaus.
The British critic Lawrence Alloway wrote: "The whole picture becomes a unit; forms extend the length of the painting or are restricted to two or three tones. The result of this sparseness is that the spatial effect of figures on a field is avoided." This response to space may relate to the contemporaneous obsession with exploring outerspace, ignited by the success of the Soviet Sputnik Program of the late 1950s.
California critic Jules Langsner (1911-1967) invented the term "Hard-Edge" for his exhibition Four Abstract Classicist at the San Francisco Museum of Art and Los Angeles County Museum in 1959. Lawrence Alloway introduced the term to a wider audience in his title West Coast Hard-Edge, a 1960 revision of the show created for the Institute of Contemporary Art in London and the Queens College in Belfast.
The West Coast artists involved were:
- John McLaughlin (1898-1976)
- Frederick Hammersley (1919-2009)
- Lorser Feitelson (1898-1978)
- Karl Benjamin (b. 1925).
Feitelson's wife Helen Lundeberg (1908-1999), and Langsner's wife June Harwood (b. ca. 1930), were not in the exhibition but did participate in this Post-Abstract Expressionist movement.
From the onset, Hard-Edge Painting seemed as laid-back as the Beach Boys' break-out 1961 hit "Surfin": uncomplicated and smooth.
On the East Coast, Hard-Edge Painters were:
- Kenneth Noland (1924-2010)
- Al Held (1928-2005)
- Jack Youngerman (ca. 1926)
- Frank Stella (b. 1936), whose shaped canvases can be considered in a category of their own.
How Long Has Hard-Edge Painting Been A Movement?
As a style, we can trace Hard-Edge Painting to Bauhaus artist Josef Albers' (1888-1976) series , begun in 1949 at Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina. In New York, we can trace the beginning to Ellsworth Kelly's Window, Museum of Art, Paris (1949, Private Collection).
However, as a movement, we should consider "Four Abstract Classicists" (Hammersley, McLaughlin, Feitelson and Benjamin) as the official launch.
What are the Key Characteristics of Hard-Edge Painting?
- Clean lines
- Colorful geometric areas
- Flat surface
- The canvas/paper/print as a unit, a shape on the wall
- Influenced by Synthetic Cubism, Park Avenue Cubism, de Stijl, Supremetism and Bauhaus.
Minimal Art
Minimal art was an artistic style, which emerged in America the late 1950s. The term was taken from an essay about modern American art by art philosopher Richard Wollheim in 1965. Hard Edge and Colour Field Painting tendencies were an important pre-requisite for the development of this style, as they had essentially prepared the ground for the use of very simple, reduced minimal forms. Minimal Art first established itself in painting, and then sculpture, where it had the greatest impact.
Minimal art sculptures were primarily made from industrial materials, such as aluminium, steel, glass, concrete, wood, plastic or stone. The objects, frequently reduced to very simple geometric shapes, were industrially produced, thus removing the artist’s personal signature from the work. The works were also characterised by serial arrangements of a number of bodies/shapes, and large dimensions.
The main representatives of Minimal art were Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, John McCracken and Robert Morris.
In contrast with Abstract Expressionism and its impulsive and gestural expression of the unconsciousness, Minimal artists focused on material aesthetics, the relationship of objects to space, the effects of light, and producing highly reduced arrangements. Donald Judd (1928-94) followed these basic principles, arranging coloured aluminium boxes in different ways, above, or next to one another. Carl Andre (born 1935) stacked rectangular wooden pegs on top of each other, or in a row. Dan Flavin (1933-96) created subtle light spaces with evenly laid out neon tubes. Minimalism also had an impact on dance and music in the 1960s. Minimalist principles also influenced artistic phenomenon such as Land Art, Arte Povera and Conceptual Art.
Minimal art sculptures were primarily made from industrial materials, such as aluminium, steel, glass, concrete, wood, plastic or stone. The objects, frequently reduced to very simple geometric shapes, were industrially produced, thus removing the artist’s personal signature from the work. The works were also characterised by serial arrangements of a number of bodies/shapes, and large dimensions.
The main representatives of Minimal art were Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, John McCracken and Robert Morris.
In contrast with Abstract Expressionism and its impulsive and gestural expression of the unconsciousness, Minimal artists focused on material aesthetics, the relationship of objects to space, the effects of light, and producing highly reduced arrangements. Donald Judd (1928-94) followed these basic principles, arranging coloured aluminium boxes in different ways, above, or next to one another. Carl Andre (born 1935) stacked rectangular wooden pegs on top of each other, or in a row. Dan Flavin (1933-96) created subtle light spaces with evenly laid out neon tubes. Minimalism also had an impact on dance and music in the 1960s. Minimalist principles also influenced artistic phenomenon such as Land Art, Arte Povera and Conceptual Art.
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