Representational

Representational art is a broad term for works that depict a recognizable aspect of visible reality — people, objects, landscapes or events. It is contrasted with abstract and non-objective (non-figurative) art, in which recognizable subjects are absent or secondary. The degree of likeness can vary enormously, from the near-photographic precision of naturalism to heavily stylized or simplified forms that nonetheless retain a link to an identifiable source. The term therefore describes the aim of showing something drawn from the world rather than a specific technique or style of execution. For most of human history art was representational, from prehistoric cave images of animals to academic painting. A decisive shift came in the early twentieth century, when artists such as Wassily Kandinsky and others began deliberately abandoning depiction in favour of pure form and colour. In that critical context the notion of the representational acquired a sharp meaning as the opposite of abstraction. In Ukrainian art the realist and figurative tradition has always coexisted with modernist and avant-garde experiment, and the term remains fundamental for analysing how a work relates to the visible world.