The Nigerian Mvies

The Nigerian Mvies
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Wednesday, 24 September 2014

Contemporary Figurative And Genre Art

By Elsa Noel


In Academy's genre hierarchy, genre art is one of the genres, together with other types, for example, landscape and portraits. The main subject on these artworks are people, and they have to do something. If they don't, the painting is actually a portrait. Both figurative and genre art have people as their main subject, but these terms aren't synonyms. All genre art can be considered as figuratism, just like most other non-abstract works.

Figurative art is any form of art that has strong and recognizable references to the real world. The importance is given to perspective, volume, shape and structure. Artists use lines, shades, color and different materials to accentuate volume and perspective, or to achieve other effects. All techniques are accepted, as long as everything is based on the real world.

Generally speaking, figuratism is representational type of art. It covers everything that isn't abstract, and can be recognized as something that really exist in the real world. All art that was made before abstract art can be considered as figuratism. Considering this, it's easy to classify any artwork into these two basic categories. If you cannot tell what it is, it is probably abstract work.

It doesn't matter what media is used. All are accepted, including oil, watercolor and pastel. People are the main subject, whether they have their clothes or not. Of course, some artists are more interested in describing particular emotions or moods, while others might be more focused on reality. Generally, all portraits that are recognizable are certainly figurative artworks.

There are no real limits to interpretation. Although this is a real figure based representation, using different styles, methods and materials results in countless variations. The main thing is that the main subject has to be recognizable at some point. Although expressionism is the best example for this category, other styles, for example cubism, belong to figurative paintings as well, as long as it is recognizable.

Figuratism covers extremely wide area. One extreme is the photo realism, and all the way on the other side is nearly abstract, barely recognizable form of expression. Again, cubism. Cubism is abstract or not, depending on the author. Unrecognizable as something based on the real world, it is abstract. If you can tell what it is, however distorted it is, it can be considered as figuratism.

Contemporary artists became more interested in this form in last few decades. Some of them can really offer something extraordinary. For example, John Currin, Jas Knight, Gillian Carnegie and Jenny Saville. If you aren't familiar with their work, you should definitely correct this mistake. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Although this type of art, especially painting, was mostly neglected during twentieth century, it became more popular during eighties. Twentieth century was mainly about avant-garde movements, yes, but skills and crafts are popular again. One of the shiniest examples of this re-born art is definitely John Currin. This artist believes that art cannot be improved, that it can only be developed into something that will reflect the world of today.




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