Etymologically, the word Abstract was adaptation from the Romans and it literally and originally meant to ‘drag’ or ‘draw’ something away

In the contemporary world of Art, Abstract is a banging word in the ears of every artists and art enthusiasts! It is a word that is now very generic to the world of arts.

Abstract Art refers to non-figurative, non-representational form of arts. Abstract art usually doesn’t not depict a person, place or thing in the natural or realistic form. It literally does not make any visual references.

Astract artists are notable for their usage of  shape interpretation, form, color, and line to create their imaginative compositions.

The documented origin of Abstract art can be traced back to the 1910’s. In the written history, Wassily Kandinsky is often regarded as the pioneer of abstract art. Kandinsky was said to have   produced the first abstract painting in 1911. It was at a time when no single painter has painted  in an abstract style.

In the early records of the documentation of Abstract art, Piet Mondarian is another early abstract artist that flourished and restructured Abstract to a more conventional and more interpretable scenes.  He introduced the usage of  bold primary colours and squares and rectangles in order to create images that he saw as pure.

While we talk about the influence and how flourished Abstract Art has turned out to be in the contemporary world of arts, have we tried to consider the major practical influence behind the introduction of Abstract art? Could there be any pre-historic factor that was adopted and refurbished to birth the abstract art? 

Well, there are plenty premises that actually indicate that there are chances that the contemporary Abstract art could have actually been influenced by the pre-historic African Arts. Indigenous African Arts have proven a high feature of non-figurativeness and geometrical structure. African arts are typically know by their abstract representations of the human figure.  According to history, African Arts has a longer dating than every other art movement.

There are so many coincidences that could ascertain the influence of African art of the contemporary Abstract art.

Written by Inioluwa Akinleye