Concrete Art’s ideology was founded in part on the idea that a work of art should not depict reality. Precision, hard edges, and geometric shapes were frequently used by artists in this art movement, as they saw themselves as firmly rooted in the Machine Age. The artists in the Concrete Art movement preferred a logical approach to making art over intuition and feeling.
Concrete Art proponents believed that a work of art should be able to stand on its own, and that its meaning should not be dependent on its ability to represent reality. They believed that the meaning of an artwork could be deduced solely from its design and composition. This emphasis on abstract art was a feature of both Concrete Art and modern art in general.
Those involved in the Concrete Art movement saw themselves as inventors and technicians in addition to being artists. The majority of them backed and promoted technology. They favored hard-edged geometric forms, and some artists even created works that resembled machines. Their approach to creating art was methodical and methodical. The expressionist approach, which favored intuition, emotion, and a near-religious search for deep universal truths about existence, was the polar opposite.
The Concrete Art movement, which began in the 1930s, attracted a large number of well-known artists. Wassily Kandinsky, for example, is widely regarded as one of the founders of non-objective, abstract art. Kandinsky’s early abstract paintings featured free-flowing organic forms, but by the 1920s, he had switched to the more geometrical straight-edged forms that would become synonymous with Concrete Art. His painting On White II, completed in 1923, resembles a piece of self-propelled machinery.
Concrete art flourished well into the twentieth century. Max Bill, for example, may be the movement’s quintessential representative. In addition to being a graphic designer and a product designer, Bill was a sculptor and painter. Watches and furniture were among his designs.
Many of Bill’s sculptures reflect these interdisciplinary influences. Endlose Treppe is a good example because it is made up of stacked rectangles that are angled to appear to be moving or twisting. Black Column with Triangular Octogonal Sections, another sculpture, also appears to turn. Both of these sculptures have a machine-like appearance due to the illusion of movement.