Contemporary Figurative And Genre Art

By Elsa Noel


Genre art pictures scenes from everyday life, usually people doing something. According to the Academy systematization, genre painting is one of the types of paintings, together with history painting, portraiture, landscape, animal paining and still life. Figurative and genre art aren't synonyms, although they can both picture animal or human figures in different situations. Genre art is figuratism, while figuratism doesn't have to be genre art.

Figurative art is even easier to describe. It always refer to the real world, and presented themes should always be recognizable. Of course, artists can picture this real world on their unique way, and they don't have to follow any special principle. They use all imaginable techniques and materials, using shades, lines and colors to achieve different effects, volume or perspective.

Although figuratism may contain different simplifications of the form, especially when it comes to paintings, this type of art is basically representational rather than abstract. Generally it may be said that figurative may be applied to all art before abstract. Today, this term is mostly used to define any art form that isn't abstract. In short, if you can tell what it is, it is definitely figuratism.

All types of media are accepted, including watercolor, oil, acrylic or any other form o expression. This art-form is focused on human figures, and they are the main subject on most paintings. They can be dressed or not. The obvious conclusion is that all portraits have to be figuratism, as long as you can recognize the subject. The artist can be more focused on shape and colors, or on emotions, depending on his style.

Although this representation is based on a real figure, using different materials, media and techniques results in really wide variety of different styles. All expressionistic artworks belong to figuratism, because they are mostly focused on shapes, colors and structure. Some other forms, for example cubism, sometimes belong to this category as well, if the figure is recognizable at some point, whatever technique is used.

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 figurative art is really rich and imaginative. There are several interesting authors that deserve to be mentioned here, for example, Johan Van Mullem, Jas Knight, Marlene Dumas and others. Of course, you shouldn't forget to check Jenny Saville and John Currin. They all have very different approaches to their art, but you will be surprised how interesting and by all means valuable these artworks are.

Different abstract art forms popular in twentieth century made figurative arts a little bit neglected. They tried to improve the art. In the eighties, this forgotten art form became popular again, thanks to numerous enthusiasts such as John Currin. Contemporary figurative art reflect modern world and definitely has something to offer. Maybe art cannot be improved, but it can offer something new and exciting.




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