The Wonders Of Figurative And Genre Art


By Christa Jarvis


Art is one of the few things that make our world more round and beautiful. It opens up our eyes to see not only beauty but also truth. What makes it significant in the human life is still debatable for some people. But one remains certain for all of us, it is life. It came to us thousands of years ago. It is as old as time but as beautiful as the future.

Historical evidences pointed out that even prehistoric people started showing their creative side by painting on caves. With all of its changes and experimentation, it has indeed come a long way. Painting is one of its most popular genres that inspired a number of artists to think of a new form like the figurative and genre art. It mainly deals with artworks that show something out of the real world. It uses models which are found on our daily life. It is the reason why it is often called as representational art. It represents something that exists in the real world. It is a great experiment of combining imagination and reality.

Questions about its history and origin were raised since time immemorial. It started on the centuries ago and continues to inspire modern artists. It actually came from abstraction when artists started gaining a significant amount of respect from subjects in the real world. Some people consider it as a variation of abstraction, but there are others who believed that it is present even before abstract art exists.

From its general characteristics, many people are confused how to determine whether a specific work is representational or not. What we should know is that all artworks are representational in their own way. That means it depicts recognizable subjects that are present in the environment which the artist belongs.

Moreover, figuration deals with the surface level of a specific work while abstraction goes deeper to the point that work became unrecognizable. Both contained ideas that are worth thinking but how they are transported to its audience depends on the form. Such forms continue to motivate young artists of today to experiment and explore.

The American artist Andy Warhol is one of the main figures who utilized the form. He is one of the most controversial yet most talented artists on the roaring sixties. His mastery goes beyond one genre as his works cover a lot of them. He is well known for his striking subjects that include celebrities and hype events.

The painting entitled as The Persistence of Memory is his most recognizable work. It was inspired by the landscapes of Catalonia which he mixed with his theories of time and space. The work is a successful overlapping of abstraction and figuration. It is abstract in a sense that it draws confusing perception but it is more representational as it mainly shows real objects.

His influence did not stop on his works, it goes beyond the school of art produced by his style. One primary school of the figurative art is the Cubism which Picasso pioneered with other artists. In Cubism, a work always has a subject which is depicted in multiple viewpoints in order to widen its context.

Today, artists of many schools begin experimenting on the genre. It is also used in different purposes such as showing the cultural value of the time where a work is made. It also influenced other forms of art such as photography.




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