Organic Abstraction

"[1] It takes its cues from rhythmic forms found in nature, both small scale, as in the structures of small-growth leaves and stems, and grand, as in the shapes of the universe that are revealed by astronomy and physics.

[2] Nautillus shells and honeycombs are examples of organic structures that have served as inspiration for this work,[3] along with the bones and musculature of the body, both human and animal.

[4] Although organic abstraction has been described as a "feature" rather than "an actual movement,"[1] the style arose in part as a reaction against the austerity of mid-century Constructivist art and is best known for its practitioners of the mid 20th century, whether in sculpture--Jean Arp, Constantin Brâncuși, Henry Moore; architecture--Eero Saarinen, Frank Lloyd Wright (for the Guggenheim Museum); or design--Charles Eames, Isamu Noguchi.

He proposed a values system elevating creativity that mimicked the processes of nature, whether by fecundity, mutation, or a concept he called "unforeseeable novelty".

"Although biomorphic forms had appeared in both painting and sculpture by 1913, it was only after the destruction of the utopian visions of Futurism, Cubism and Constructivism, by Stalinism, the Great Depression and Nazism, that Science was superseded by Nature as the prime inspiration for painters and sculptors alike.