Why was there so little fantasy or abstract art before the 20th Century?
Hi, I was just wondering if someone could tell me why it took so long for Western artists to move away from trying to realistically depict the world, and to move onto more fantastic or abstract art such as we saw in the 20th Century. I realise there was a small degree of fantasy-like art before this, such as mythological depictions, and surreal works by painters like Heironymous Bosch, but I don’t understand why there wasn’t much more of this throughout the ages.
Oh but there was! Fantasy and fantastical beasts were common in art in from 2500 BC to early AD. After the 5th century AD though, because of the introduction of Christianity, this kind of depiction was seen as blasphemous and was either created secretively or its’ iconography shifted to accommodate Christian beliefs.
In some places, such as England, Wales and Ireland fantasy and abstract art existed well after the 1200′s and the beginning of the Medieval Era, which was a tough thing to do since in those times there was virtually no art that was not Christian.
So, to answer your question much of the art you are talking about was either destroyed or squelched by the widespread onset of Christianity in Europe, the subsequent slaughter of many indigenous peoples and fall of the Roman Empire. Art didn’t stray from that until the Renaissance, and even then it took a while for the fear and stiffness to subside and give way to imagination again.
In 2500 BC the Celts were known to have painted symbolic depictions of animal hybrids on rocks –birds with hooves and horns and animal skulls blending and mixing with human forms. Later, these forms would merge completely to become a linear “knot” style of art which can definitely, by today’s definition, be called Abstract.
This style continued into the creation of Illuminated Manuscripts, or ornate hand written versions of the Christian bible.
After the very beginnings of the spread of Christianity in early AD, Fantasy became biblically oriented and Abstract became the architecture of churches. Some of my favorite examples are scenes that illustrate Jonah and the Whale. The “fish” in the story was not interpreted until later as being a whale and so the animal was often shown as a serpent-like sea monster creature.
In Early Christian art the disciples were often related to spirit animals that represented their personality traits, directly related to symbol animals of the tribes or indigenous people of the area. This was an aid to people who could not read and were not yet converted. They could look at the picture and know that for example, the Ox was a symbol for Luke. Sometimes they would actually be human bodies with the head of the corresponding animal. Total Fantasy style art.
This popped up again around 1400 in Czech paintings of the saints. Master Theodoric did a silly one with a tiny winged ox peeking over Luke’s shoulder.
Sorry, I’m really excited about this subject.
Abstract art paintings by abstract artist Osnat Tzadok
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