Art styles are about more than just classification. They can act as a guide to help you find your artistic voice and make aesthetic decisions. In this article, we’ll cover the top five art styles and show you a few examples of work created using them.
So what are the main art styles? Well, if you search “what is my art style” on Google, the results will produce 5 main categories: realism, naturalism, impressionism, expressionism, and abstract art. We’ll go over each one below and give you a few examples to get familiar with each style.
Realism
The subject matter is depicted truthfully and as it appears in real life. Detail is important in this style and the subject matter is usually depicted from a single angle or viewpoint.
Realism is a focus on basic observation of the real world. This is an accurate representation of the natural world, most evident in the work of Gustave Courbet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. It is the portrayal of people and scenes as they would appear in everyday life.
Naturalism
This style gives the impression that the subject matter was painted directly from nature. However, the artist usually takes creative license to bend reality by altering colors, shapes, and textures to improve the appearance or create an emotional response.
Impressionism
This style was pioneered in the late 19th century by artists such as Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It depicts subjects in a way that captures their fleeting moment in time.
Impressionism is designed to render the experience o/f color and its psychological effect by focusing on the light in its changing qualities (usually natural light) through a broken touch approach to brushwork. The movement is characterized by strong colors and short brush strokes which give a sketchy finish to the paintings. Impressionist artists include Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Expressionism
A variety of this style was popular with artists during World War I because it captured the emotion and angst of the era. The subject matter is often exaggerated, distorted, or otherwise altered to convey a specific emotion or feeling. This is designed to go beyond impressionism through distortion, exaggeration, primitivism, etc to express emotional experience.
Abstract Art
This type of art can be traced back nearly 100 years but has gained popularity in recent decades. It depicts everyday subject matter using only simple shapes and colors
Abstract art is a form of art that uses form and color to create a more expressive piece. It attempts to express ideas, emotions, and/or movement in a way that our minds can connect with using the senses. Abstract art does not represent or look like anything we would see in the real world, but it does invoke an emotional response from us and stimulates our imagination.
The majority of abstract art is non-objective, meaning that there is no focus on any particular subject or object. Some forms are semi-abstract, which means they may show some convincing elements from reality but use shapes and forms that do not exist in nature.
To understand abstract art, you need to look beyond the subject matter and focus on the elements of art such as line, shape, color, and texture.
Widely Used Styles Of Abstract Art
Abstract art is a way of expressing a modified view of the world by simplifying or complicating the use of one or more of these elements. This style does not depict a person, place, or thing in the natural world.
The following list represents some widely used styles of abstract art:
- Abstract wall art
- Lyrical Abstraction
- Action Painting
- Color Field Painting
- Minimalist paintings
Some of the top five abstract painting styles are Abstract wall art, lyrical abstraction, action painting, color field painting, and minimalist painting.
Abstract wall art is a modern form of art that is meant to stimulate the imagination. It can be used to teach children about colors, shapes, and forms. The best abstract wall art is designed to create an atmosphere that is both peaceful and inspiring.
The word abstract means “to draw or pull away from.” An abstract artist extracts the essence of an object and gives it a new form. He or she uses colors, lines, textures, shapes, and forms that are unique and not found in nature. Abstract art does not represent anything from the natural world or reality. It represents itself as an object that stands on its own.
Lyrical abstraction is an art style that emerged in France in the 1940s and 1950s. It is an art movement that emerged from abstract expressionism.
Action painting refers to a type of modern art painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed, or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. Action painting began with artists like Jackson Pollock dripping paint onto the canvas in his studio.
Color field painting is a style of abstract painting. Color field painting became one of the leading genres of abstract expressionism in the 1950s. Mark Rothko was a leading member of this group who worked on creating large color fields.Minimalist paintings are characterized by simple geometric shapes and forms with few or no individual brushstrokes visible and often have an industrial feel to them due to their smooth surfaces.
