To a turning point in modernism abstraction was one of the means of expression, such as: simplification, geometrization, stylization, the formalization of the objects of perception, when perception of the object recedes into the background, emphasizing its symbolic meaning or a composite planar shape, but leaving the basis for the imaginative perception. On the other hand, there was discourse about ornamentation in which the notion of ornament was considered from the perspective of the history of art (“art history without names), and which developed the historical iconography of the ornament. Theodore Iipps in two tomes of his “Aesthetics” (1903.1906) and Wilhelm Vorringer in the thesis “Abstraction and feeling” had developed a comprehensive line of readability and ornamentation. In addition to decorative and symbolic value that underlies each ornament (it should be considered “at the base of each ornamental shapes as references to some sense, an abstract figure – that is, as a symbol, which in a decorative context through repetition and alternation becomes free from the sense of decorative form) there is also a historical and social landmark expressive value that can be called “physiognomic”.
Accordingly, around 1900 it was used no subject, abstract lines, and it was continued debates about the abstract line, or an abstract ornament – an abstract ornament was read as a diagram, similar to mimetic sinusoid, the quantitative indicators of which were passed by wavy lines or a spiral. The notion of “abstraction” gained other but major importance when the works of some artists – especially of Vassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian – it was a transition to a completely new painting related to a completely new way of perception. The fact that this transition was not simply the development of abstraction, but a radical turning point of habitual way of perception can be seen in the works of the heroes of abstract art.
Radicality of this change is more obvious when we recall that a number of artists in 1911-1912 reached this limit of abstract painting, but they were not able to cross the limit and stopped, and later returned to the traditional forms. In the works of Robert Delaunay, Frantisek Kuchka, Giacomo Balian, Mikhail Larionov and Adolf Neltsel you can see how it is not similar their pictures and point to which they had come to abandon the substantive question – if it is worth to develop further this new way of thinking, which the plane of abstract painting demanded.
By that time, the latest European era interpreted the painting as finestra aperta (open window), as a glass window, opened optically in the space outside the window – into a space similar to that in which the viewer is. Through the glass it can be considered a space: intimate, affordable optically, but closed to other senses, especially acoustic and tactile. The visible world in the picture motivates the scenic track, staging of picture’s space – something that each figure or object is in the picture in its place – depends on such staging, so they are clear, do not require additional thinking of the viewer. Abstracting, geometrization, stylization and simplification of forms on a plane patterns have not changed anything in the way of perception: painting looked transparent in relation to images of the world and its context.
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