& Formal Art Work Essay, Research Paper
A Comparison of Formal and Avant-Garde Artwork
Modern art is a unique creation all it?s own, and since it?s beginnings there have been two
very distinct groups present. They are the Formalists and the Avant-Garde. The Formalist group
believes in the literal representation of the art work. They value the form used, whether it be how
the colors are stressed or the techniques used, over the idea behind the art work. The
Avant-Garde artists on the other hand are more interested in the creation of art in order to
challenge what exactly art is and can be. They have tried to break down the boundaries of what
art is.
I selected Piet Modrian for as the artist I looked at regarding Formalism. His work
seemed to change over a period of time. His ?Woods? done in 1910 showed a typical painting of
the forest. By typical I mean that the depiction of the forest was done to look like a forest on the
canvas. The next piece of ?Tree? done in 1911 showed a more abstract form of trees while you
could still detect on a lot of movement within the painting. The shapes and negative space
between the lines is what became more important in his work. He then created ?Composition
with Trees? in 1914. This piece as his previous ones was even more abstract and was honing in
on the form of the painting. Later he created a piece known only as ?Composition?, removing the
trees and woods all together from the title. He was trying to create the essence of nature using
rectangles and simplifying lines to their primary essence. He also used more primary colors versus
his previous works done in black and white.
This idea that Mondrian was using while creating his works of art was one of the ideas
that Clement Greenberg was dealing with in his works. Greenberg said that the actual painting
over the form is what makes the art work abstract.1 Greenberg believed that one could reduce art
to it?s pure essence and form. Greenberg also believed in the idea that the flatness of the work is
what comes first and that what is inside that flatness comes second, telling of the importance of
the intersections of lines and negative space.
Through radical simplification of composition and color, Mondrian tried to expose the
basic principles that underlie all artwork.2 He said that art should not concern itself with
reproducing images of real objects, but should express only the universal absolutes that underlie
them. Mondrian then rejects all qualities of texture, surface, and color, thereby reducing his palate
to primary colors. Greenberg?s idea of the flatness of the work is what comes first3 comes
through when Mondrian?s belief that a canvas should contain only planar elements and led to his
abolition of all curved lines in favor of straight lines.
The piece that I selected to discuss for the Avant-Garde is Marcel Duchamp?s ?Fountain?.
The very way in which Duchamp entered this piece into the exhibit shows that he was trying to
test the boundaries of art. He and American artist Joseph Stella submitted this urinal to a 1917
New York City exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists. Entitled ?Fountain? the urinal
was submitted and signed under a pseudonym R. Mutt. By presenting unaltered, everyday
objects as sculpture, Duchamp radically changed the course of modern art. He wrote of it soon
after and said, ?Whether Mr. Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no
importance. He CHOSE it,” and thereby “created a new thought for that object.”4
Duchamp?s style of Avant-Garde was derived from Dada. He was trying to create a
tension between reality and artwork. He was also trying to enact social change by getting people
to look at things from a different perspective. Burger describe this process in several ways. First
he used the word new to describe the change in the creation of art. He also says that it negates
the tradition of what art is held to be. Next Burger says that Avant-Garde uses chance, in that
meaning the arbitrary way in which two unrelated events are somehow connected. Burger also
says that the use of allegory, taking fragments of reality and putting them together to mean
something, is important and is done by the use of montage. Montage is the technical device by
which the artist puts these fragments together. It is
The reason I chose these two pieces of art is simple. They both go the extreme end of
their own respected movements. Mondrian changed his style from trees on a hillside to nothing
more than the straight lines that represent the actual form of nature while Duchamp on the other
hand selected an everyday item and decided to call it art. Of course it was not just an everyday
item, it was something that no one who saw it would really consider it art.
The thought process of these two authors was quite different in their workings of art.
Mondrian worked so hard on ridding his paintings from any meanings within the artwork. He was
trying to stress the importance of each line painted, and the aesthetic appeal of the bright primary
colors next to the black intersecting lines. Mondrian also focused heavily on his use of negative
space within his artwork. He saw the importance of the negative space between his lines and as
time progressed he used more and more space between his lines.6
Duchamp on the other hand was trying to get the viewer to interpret his ready-made
artwork. He did not want the viewer to just observe the piece of art and note that there was great
use of form. That the lines were painted evenly and the primary colors worked well next to each
other. He wanted the viewer to ask themselves the question of, ?Is this art?? and, ?Why is this
art??7 Duchamp was trying to change the viewers ?gaze?. That being the, ?the object a in the
field of the visible is the gaze,? according to Jacques Lacan.8 The idea of what influenced each
person?s own viewpoints was made accountable.
As Duchamp was trying to create art in a new way, a way in which no one had ever
thought of or even dreamed of, he ran into a couple of problems. By taking the urinal out of it?s
original context and placing it into a museum the object had become, ?more real than the real?.9
Duchamp had almost undone what he wanted to do by putting the urinal in an art museum on
display. He had placed this everyday item on to stage in an art gallery and made the ordinary
urinal more than just a urinal. It was now a urinal portraying a urinal at an art gallery. His
ready-made object had taken on a, ?hyperrealistic role on the screen of the museum.?10 Although
this was not Duchamp?s intentions he had asked viewers to look at his ready-made in a different
context than he originally expected.
Mondrian faced similar problems with his work. As a formalist he was trying to get to the
pure essence of the artwork. While he was trying to get down to this essence I feel that he
opened up many interpretations to his work. He just trying to use the most simple lines and
colors and created great formalist work, but I believe that when he did this he let people interpret
for themselves what they were really looking at. At the beginning his work resembled real life
objects but by the end of his ?Composition? one could interpret the art in a number of ways. The
simplicity of the artwork had created a complexity to it just because people could view his work
either in the formalist approach or they might try to derive meaning from it and overlook the great
form of his work.
Both of these artists were similar in the fact that while they were trying to attain some idea
from the viewer they left another view open. Duchamp?s idea of placing the urinal on display
brought about many thoughts that were not intended. He was trying to push the boundaries of
what art is, but by doing this he created a stir of creating real objects that seemed more real than
real to the viewers because of it?s public display. Mondrian had a similar problem in that by trying
to create the most simple and formalist work he opened up his work for more abstract
interpretation.
Mondrian and Duchamp were two of the most influential artists of their times. Mondrian?s
theories of abstraction and simplification not only altered the course of painting but also exerted a
profound influence on architecture, industrial design, and formalism itself. Duchamp?s insistence
of pushing the boundaries of art changed the future of ?What is art?? and modern art forever.
They shared many differences in how they created their artwork but they shared many of the same
dilemmas when having their art interpreted by people.