As part of my abstract Sunday, here is an article from Fred Ross slamming abstraction in any and every form – his qualifications are impeccable but do you agree with his philosophy? Have your say in the ongoing and emotive argument and read the counter claims in the previous posts.
I feel that anything that is creative expression is art, but still respect the ideas and opinions of others. My personal feelings is that abstract art is filled with more emotion and with more detail then just recreating an event because it requires meaning and thought to be put into it. In recreation pieces where the artists just paint a scene or a person, they paint what is there. I’m not ignorant, i know they add special things into their art for bigger meanings, but still they see what will be on there canvas, or what their marble will become. Abstract expressionist use the elements of art and create something no one has seen. It is their creation, while other artists are just coping the creations of the earth. A TRUE artist should understand, and respect abstract art just for the mere fact that anything can be art.
Thanks Nickola for your insightful comments. An artists’s views on art are especially valuable. I like what you have to say: “Art is a product of the times in which the artists themselves have lived and it would indeed be interesting to see how people will look back upon our present and the art we leave behind for them.” Think of Van Gogh’s story. I also believe that we (society) call forth those artists that best respond to society’s needs. I plan to explore this topic on MadSilence in the future. Keep well. ~TAB
Hi Madsilence,
Wow, that’s a big comment you have there:-)
It’s late here and I’m heading to my bed but I shall certainly come back with my thoughts, thanks for taking the time to add to the debate.
Nickola……..
Is all art abstract? It’s an interesting premise but isn’t the act of recognition something that happens in our subconscious? If for example you look at a picture that shows a line of trees with a tiger’s tale poking out, you know, even though you can’t see the tiger, that’s exactly what it is. Your brain fills in the gaps for you. (I had this conversation with my husband when he was explaining something to me about drivers making mistakes because their brains sometimes fill in areas blocked from their vision with what a person would “expect” to be there).
It leads into the point about Pollack and your daughter…..some people see things that others don’t, I think that is a given. Those 3D pictures made up from countless dots…I know people who have never managed to see a picture in them, and yet the image will jump straight out at others. We all look at things differently and I think our brains are largely responsible for our reactions to images. Some people look at abstracts trying desperately to divine something recognizable from it, others see things within it without really trying and this happens whether or not the artist intended for there to be a “hidden” or “disguised” subject. People often ask me “what is it?” but then again, just as many will describe something to me in one of my own paintings that was never in my mind when painting it. Evidence that our brains are full of trickery when fed inforation through our eyes. Training courses often use pictures with more than one hidden image to illustrate exactly this.
I understand your preference for realism and representational works, but it is indeed interesting that your list of favourites includes the names you mention…..or is it? Kandinsky alone, to my mind is one of the greatest painters to have ever lived. Not only were his works visually stunning, they hold far more imagery than many people can divine by looking at them. To me, his works are definitely highly crafted. Someone once wrote to me here and told me that they could not appreciate people like Kandinsky until they took a course on art. I think that is sad and many would say that that is exactly why abstract expressionism is a nonsense, but I’ll bet those same people would look at a myriad of dots and see a myriad of dots.
I would not argue your point about traditional skills being lost to the modern world, I think it is true, perhaps inevitable. When speaking in terms of the artistic world however, I’m not convinced that there are not still many highly skilled painters and sculptors working at their craft. The Damien Hirsts of this world may make the headlines but will history ever view them in the same light as the old masters….I think not.
I think you sum it up nicely when you say “that frisson of excitement, that ‘aesthetic delectation’,” is what makes a great work of art – for you. I like to believe that is the same for us all, but that it takes many different things to produce those emotions. To me, art should provoke a reaction in the viewer, and preferably one of positive gratification, a good feeling. I realize that is not always possible, aesthetics being what they are, the desire to shock, maybe even disgust, is something that artists throughout history have sometimes sought to do as well. Art is a product of the times in which the artists themselves have lived and it would indeed be interesting to see how people will look back upon our present and the art we leave behind for them.
Nickola
Hi Nickola. I’m glad my daughter found your site. I’ve spent the last few years reading and thinking about this very issue: abstraction versus figuration. Here are some of my ideas. Let me know what you think.
• All art is abstract. Our brains interpret the patterns of color, line and form that our eyes perceive. We then use our brains to apply meaning to that image.
• My daughter can spend hours in front of a Jackson Pollack creation, enthralled by what she sees. I just don’t get it.
• My favorite artworks are representational and figurative, highly crafted. And yet when I recently made a list of my favorite artists, the names Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Maya Lin were high on the list. One of my most moving artistic experiences took place at midnight in front of Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.
• When I recall my last visit to London’s Tate Modern, I think of a simple ready-made crafted by Man Ray: an antique iron with carpet tacks affixed to its face. That image still haunts me.
• Whistler was a champion of abstraction. He removed the “narrative trigger” so beloved by Europe’s academic artists of the 19th century. He entitled the painting of his mother “Arrangement in Gray and Black” and thoroughly discomfited his public.
• The contemporary art world is rapidly losing the skills needed to create highly crafted paintings: sketching, modeling and brush handling. The skills to create figural sculptures in stone are being lost. Even Jackson Polack had a formal artistic education.
Any artifact created by humankind can be a work of art. Standards of quality (and history) will decide the great ones. When judging any artistic creation the same factors apply: subject matter, form, shape, medium, line, color, texture, and the artist’s intent. And of course the viewer’s aesthetic judgment.
Abstract or figurative, when I feel that frisson of excitement, that “aesthetic delectation,” I know I’ve found a great work of art.
Thanks. ~TAB
Hi Michael in SC!
Thank you for reading and leaving your thoughts. I will be visiting you more often too and admiring some of the fascinating images you blog about.
Nickola
Happy to have run across your journal here!
Although I do not agree with the author’s views on this piece, … it gives one plenty to think about.
Have you bookmarked, … and I will be back!
Curtis – thanks for your comments. I thought it was a very interesting article, even though I do not subscribe to the author’s views.
I also believe that art is about so much more than representations of our surroundings and what can be seen and, no matter how skillfully, facsimilied. I freely accept that many of the old masters painted their own interpretations of events that occurred long before their lives had even begun (I’m thinking of religious iconography for example) and that they plainly could not have copied such images but had to conjure them from imagination. There is no doubt that their talents were awe inspiring.
I also believe that abstract expressionism has suffered because there have been, and always will be, people who believe they can replicate abstraction far more easily than any other art forms, and thus enrich themselves. I am of the belief that although such “artists” may fool some of the people some of the time, that is the peak of their not so lofty ambition. Art, abstract or otherwise, exists for the enrichment of the lives of others, in a multitiude of ways – by doing so, any form of creative expression can become art.
Nickola
I’m very surprised that we can have such diversity and general acceptance in a new forms of music, dance, architecture and literature, but Abstract Art is still not accepted by some art scholars.
They insist it is some kind of conspiracy of market manipulation.
Each major art movement from the very beginning was based on revolution. Each one broke free and reached a new level of creativity. Of course, each new major art movement also had its naysayers, those who thought it was foolish.
I think it’s time the naysayers of Abstract Art would stop and review the basic definition of art. Isn’t it creative expression or is it merely the ability to copy what one sees?