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How and why did abstract art in the early twentieth century draw upon Universalist spiritual beliefs?

Evolving after photography abstract art conveyed all that could not be captured through eye of a camera lens. It abandoned the stultifying constraints of representational art and embraced a new found freedom from conventional concerns and restraints, which allowed for unobstructed expressiveness and an innovative means of communicating emotions. This innovative means of expression which abandoned the representation of any physical form or object, drew clear parallels to the universalist spiritual beliefs that rejected material associations and embraced the journey from the physical to the transcendental.


Throughout history the primary purpose of painting had been to paint perfectly reproduced images rather than to evoke emotion. It was not until the late 1800’s that expressive art had begun to surface and later still, at the turn of the twentieth century that abstract art evolved into a practice concerned with representing the phenomenally unconscious feelings associated with m...

Posted by: Sean Wilson

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