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A term which can generally be applied to any non-representational art (most decorative art, for example), but which is more specifically used, from the early 20th century onwards, to describe painting and sculpture which are deliberately non-representational. Implicit to abstract art is the notion that the work of art exists in its own right, and not necessarily as a mirror of reality. The Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) is generally credited with producing the first abstract painting in around 1910.

Text source: The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Art Terms (2nd Edition) by Michael Clarke


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