New European Painting
Encyclopedia
New European Painting emerged in the 1980s and has clearly reached a critical point of major distinction and influence in the 1990s with painters like Gerhard Richter
and Bracha Ettinger whose paintings have established and continue to create a new dialogue between the historical archive, American Abstraction and figurality, followed by painters like Luc Tuymans
, Marlene Dumas
and others,. A third wave came with artists like Neo Rauch
, Michaël Borremans
and Chris Ofili
. Neo-expressionism
and other related movements in painting have emerged in the final two decades of the 20th century in Europe and in the United States, but this New Painting is not expressionist. Rather it is a renovative kind of abstraction and figuration that relates to the parallel practice of a turning into art of personal and historical photographic archives. The New European Painting relates to the post traumatic traces of war and it involves working oil painting and drawings with new media like photography, xerox and digital media to create and develop a postmodern archive "fever". This painting relates through this aspect to the post WW2 "archive" art with artists like Christian Boltanski
and Jochen Gerz, and it is often a part of this tendency. Yet, though this painting has a clear figurative stroke it is strongly connected to Lyrical Abstraction
and to contemporary reconsiderations of the Sublime
in art.
Gerhard Richter
Gerhard Richter is a German visual artist. Richter has simultaneously produced abstract and photorealistic painted works, as well as photographs and glass pieces, thus undermining the concept of the artist’s obligation to maintain a single cohesive style.- Biography :Gerhard Richter was born in...
and Bracha Ettinger whose paintings have established and continue to create a new dialogue between the historical archive, American Abstraction and figurality, followed by painters like Luc Tuymans
Luc Tuymans
Luc Tuymans is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. Tuymans is considered one of the most influential painters working today. His signature figurative paintings transform mediated film, television, and print sources into examinations of history and memory.-Life:Tuymans...
, Marlene Dumas
Marlene Dumas
Marlene Dumas is a South African born artist and painter who lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Stressing both the physical reality of the human body and its psychological value, Dumas tends...
and others,. A third wave came with artists like Neo Rauch
Neo Rauch
Neo Rauch is a German artist whose paintings mine the intersection of his personal history with the politics of industrial alienation. His work reflects the influence of socialist realism, and owes a debt to Surrealists Giorgio de Chirico and René Magritte, although Rauch hesitates to align...
, Michaël Borremans
Michaël Borremans
Michaël Borremans is a Belgian painter and filmmaker who lives and works in Ghent. His painting technique draws on 18th century art as well as the works of Édouard Manet and Degas. The artist also cites the Spanish court painter Diego Velázquez as an important influence...
and Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili is a Turner Prize winning British painter best known for artworks referencing aspects of his Nigerian heritage, particularly his incorporation of elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists, and is now based in Trinidad.-Early life:Ofilli was born in Manchester. He had a...
. Neo-expressionism
Neo-expressionism
Neo-expressionism is a style of modern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s...
and other related movements in painting have emerged in the final two decades of the 20th century in Europe and in the United States, but this New Painting is not expressionist. Rather it is a renovative kind of abstraction and figuration that relates to the parallel practice of a turning into art of personal and historical photographic archives. The New European Painting relates to the post traumatic traces of war and it involves working oil painting and drawings with new media like photography, xerox and digital media to create and develop a postmodern archive "fever". This painting relates through this aspect to the post WW2 "archive" art with artists like Christian Boltanski
Christian Boltanski
Christian Boltanski is French sculptor, photographer, painter and film maker.-Life and work:Having no formal art education, he began painting in 1958. Nevertheless, he first came to public attention in 1960 with few short films and publication of several notebooks...
and Jochen Gerz, and it is often a part of this tendency. Yet, though this painting has a clear figurative stroke it is strongly connected to Lyrical Abstraction
Lyrical Abstraction
Lyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...
and to contemporary reconsiderations of the Sublime
Sublime (philosophy)
In aesthetics, the sublime is the quality of greatness, whether physical, moral, intellectual, metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual or artistic...
in art.
See also
- Neo-expressionismNeo-expressionismNeo-expressionism is a style of modern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s...
- Lyrical AbstractionLyrical AbstractionLyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...
- Postmodern artPostmodern artPostmodern art is a term used to describe an art movement which was thought to be in contradiction to some aspect of modernism, or to have emerged or developed in its aftermath...
- Late ModernismLate ModernismLate modernism encompasses the overall production of most recent art made between the aftermath of World War II and the early years of the 21st century. The terminology often points to similarities between late modernism and post-modernism although there are differences. The predominant term for...
- ModernismModernismModernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
- Digital paintingDigital paintingDigital painting is an emerging art form in which traditional painting techniques such as watercolor, oils, impasto, etc. are applied using digital tools by means of a computer, a digitizing tablet and stylus, and software. Traditional painting is painting with a physical medium as opposed to a...
- IntermediaIntermediaIntermedia was a concept employed in the mid-sixties by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins to describe the ineffable, often confusing, inter-disciplinary activities that occur between genres that became prevalent in the 1960s. Thus, the areas such as those between drawing and poetry, or between painting...
External links
- History of Painting
- History of Art: From Paleolithic Age to Contemporary Art
- http://www.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/phil%20of%20art/kandinskytext.htm Kandinsky Concerning the Spiritual in Art, accessed online May 28, 2007
- http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_n8_v35/ai_19416263/ concerning the relation of 20 Century painting to History