Serial art is a genre of modern art that seeks to create an aesthetic effect through series, repetitions, and variations of the same subject, theme, or system of constant and variable elements or principles.
Serial imagery is the repeating of one image in many variations or forms. It is a central idea in modern and contemporary art. It can take several forms. A portrait can painted in differing hues and backgrounds with subtle changes to the subject as in Van Gogh’s L’Arlésienne and Claude Monet’s Rouen Cathedral Another type is where the same subject is painted at different times of day or seasons of the year for example Claude Monet in his Poplars, Haystacks. The same subject may also be rendered in different mediums, and in different poses, thus, the practice of underpainting may be considered a form of serial imagery even if the image is lost in the completed work. It is common in photography where multiple exposures at varies angles are taken with different lenses etc. in search of the desired effect. It is also used in literature, especially poetry.
The individual objects – in contrast to the work group or variation – are not connected loosely by the subject, but by so-called picture rules. These are the specifications that have to be implemented in detail within the series. Another characteristic of the series is that it could theoretically be continued infinitely theoretically due to the interchangeability. By implementing the pictorial rules, the individual work loses its individuality and is theoretically interchangeable. The series can therefore be captured in terms of content only in the overall view. At the same time, the subject withdraws from the representation itself.
It was used by Francisco Goya with his La maja desnuda and La maja vestida (1797-1800). It is seen in classical art whenever studies were made and used to produce a finished work. This was a common practice for Leonardo da Vinci’, Michelangelo and most of the other classical artists although most of their studies and sketches did not survive.
The first artists who have existing serial artworks are Claude Monet, more intuitively than conceptually, pictorial rules were implemented and a series that went beyond the mere group of works was created. This work was also a starting point for the development of abstract painting, because the emphasis on representation over what was portrayed made it easier for the observer to recognize the work of art as independent of the subject and thus to grasp the value of the work itself. As a result, serial art was at times restricted to the basic elements of pictorial representation, color and form, through constructivism and the art of concret.
Example:
The Compositions with Grid (1919), Ellsworth Kelly with Red Yellow Blue White (1952), On Kawara with Today (since 1966) or Sol LeWitt with Cube (1988/90).
Source From Wikipedia