Contemporary Abstract Art

[jburnett]

Lol! It's fine! I just didn't want you to think I was arguing with you. You're new to us, and I didn't want you to think I was slapping at you, because it was not so, and we want to keep you around with us! Strong feelings are good! I wasn't clear in the WHY of putting that up there, so consider it my bad.

[Anyankha]

You've made some excellent points there, Chasm - ones that I had in mind while reading, but didn't have time to formulate! People tend to assume that there is one reality, identical and uniform for everyone, and they get quite rattled when others don't see things quite the same. E.g. I teach a class of people with mental health problems; for several of them the voices in their head are part of their everyday reality. If William Blake were alive today, his visions (his reality!) would be medicated away.

Quite apart from that, there's also the choices we make in how we look at 'reality', how much to leave out. Our perception filters all the time - we don't perceive every tiny detail around us at all. Perhaps the abstract painters have just managed to increase the filter strength.

[Vivamis123]

I really have no clue to the answer...but I am going to give it a shot....just for the fun of it.

I find it harder to paint abstract then "real". It seems to me that when I paint abstract...I am in communication with "doing/action" where as when I paint "real" I am in communication with my sences (what I see, even if it is in my minds eye)

Compairing these two reminds me of a quote by Piccaso: "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child".

[Morgan]

I like that !!! it says it all, pretty much.

[chasm4u]

Originally Posted by Anyankha

You've made some excellent points there, Chasm - ones that I had in mind while reading, but didn't have time to formulate! People tend to assume that there is one reality, identical and uniform for everyone, and they get quite rattled when others don't see things quite the same. E.g. I teach a class of people with mental health problems; for several of them the voices in their head are part of their everyday reality. If William Blake were alive today, his visions (his reality!) would be medicated away.

Quite apart from that, there's also the choices we make in how we look at 'reality', how much to leave out. Our perception filters all the time - we don't perceive every tiny detail around us at all. Perhaps the abstract painters have just managed to increase the filter strength.

Exactly. I somtimes notice things most people walk passed adn I am amused by the little things I notice but at the same time while I am admiring the little things I miss out on the big things. For example, I may see a little kitten hiding in a ditch as I drive by but it took me 3 months or more to notice a new doller general store being built by my old house. lol

[Scout123]

I notice all the Dollar stores!

I'm a little late here.

I love abstract but I didn't appreciate it until I joined this forum a few years ago.

Actually you guys made me try it myself. I love seeing it and doing it. In paint or drawing but in sculpture I prefer reality, with the emotion of it affecting you. I'm still practicing just getting things right. My right brain is almost primed for it. Scout

[jburnett]

I love both, but have a harder time wrapping my head around pieces that mix them. I think it's tricker from the artist's standpoint to do so and get a good result.

[Phil Slattery]

This is sort of an interesting discussion. I think most people answering the question seem to have a more or less traditional preference for realism in art and don't seem to have a great appreciation for abstract art. Chasm4U seems to have the most interesting views, if for no other reason than because they seem to be so divergent and enthusiastic (I say this in a good way), even though I disagree with about half the things he says, the other half I agree with wholeheartedly.

I am a novice artist myself. After thirty some years of studying art in galleries, books, etc. I decided to dive into it. I am toying with abstracts now and read as much as I can on the great abstract artists. There are several points in this conversation I would like to address.

1. Yes, liking abstract art vs. realistic art is a preference the same as any other, like preferring rocky road ice cream to vanilla or preferring ketchup on a hamburger as opposed to mayonnaise.

2. There is nothing to "get" about abstract art. One either likes the work or not--the same with rocky road ice cream, scotch whiskey, or cheese made from goat's milk. You can study all the history of art and all the artistic movements and styles since the 19th century that gradually came together to form what we now call "abstract art" and know the entire history of abstract art by heart, but it all comes down to whether the individual work appeals to you. For me, the more I study abstract art, the more it becomes clear that comparing figurative art to abstract art is like comparing apples to oranges. They're both paint on canvas (most of the time), but the similarity ends there. With figurative art, it is very easy to understand the intellectual and emotional connections the artist is trying to establish with the viewer, but abstract art is trickier, because it attempts to establish intellectual and emotional connections with the viewer without using form. This is much more subjective and much more difficult to achieve and it demands the viewer have at least a basic knowledge of art in order to understand what the artist is attempting to achieve or to know when the artist is exhibiting no talent whatsoever.

3. The wikipedia article on abstract art makes an excellent point regarding abstract art when it states that truly abstract art is formless. There are subcategories to abstract art, such as geometric abstract, which makes use of geometric designs and others. These are explained to a degree in wikipedia.

4. Ansel Adams, the photographer, once said that art is not a matter of duplicating reality, but of what one can do with reality. Reality is the springboard from which most art originates. However, purely abstract art may not originate in reality. If you have seen the Ed Harris movie, "Pollock", about the life of Jackson Pollock, one thing that comes across that made Pollock so significant was that he created out of nothing. He did not use reality as his springboard.

5. The quote from Picasso by Vivamis123 is on the money. Most of the great abstract artists started out as realists or painting in traditional styles (Jackson Pollock studied with Thomas Hart Benton and his early realistic works reflect this), but moved on to abstract and had to forget everything they had learned to that point.

6. I will have to start investigating the works of Joan Miro. He sounds fascinating.

7. David C. Kuss has some excellent points. I think I agree with about 95% of what he says.

I could write on for the rest of the night, but I must get some sleep and go to work in the morning. I think this group made some fascinating points.

[Phil Slattery]

I wrote that long diatribe on abstract art and completely forgot the original question. I probably shouldn't have had those three pints of beer with supper.

The original question was: how does one know when one has improved one's abstract art. I think the answer is the same one Jackson Pollock (played by Ed Harris) in the movie "Pollock" uses when someone asks him "How do you know when you're finished [with a work]? Pollock responds: "How do you know when you're finished making love?" I have dabbled in writing, photography, and now painting, and that seems to be the best response to how does one know when one is finished (or has improved) in any of those fields. You just know; you have it out of your system. If you have achieved what you wanted to achieve, you have succeeded.

I have been working on an abstract/representational painting over the last few days. There is one area I am not happy with. I could exhibit it and no one else may ever seen anything wrong in that area, but I do, and I am not happy with it. It will be finished when I am happy with it.

[thistle_dew]

Welcome to the forum Phil and for contributing your thoughts in this thread.

We'd all love to hear more about you and your work so please introduce yourself in the New Member Section and share some of your work with us.

[Patrick David]

For Jackson Pollock making love and being done totally make sense for him. His lyrical way of laying paint on the canvas was nearly orgasmic (I am not trying to make puns). What I have not heard in this thread is something that may or may not be true:
Abstract artist (especially expressionist) may be doing the painting for their OWN GRATIFICATION. I am not saying this in a mean way... I have painted abstractly and expressively and can truly tell you no drug can get me that high and no religion can make me feel closer to my creator. Creating from nothing, formless, no color, pure white, lots of colors. When I have painted that way (expressionist) I feel free. To add the viewer in means to consciously begin thinking about design elements/color/aesthetics/content/meaning etc. Action painters like Pollock were confident enough to go into a trance thinking the other elements (design etc) would be "automatic". In my humble opinion some of the greats created paintings and could be analyzed based on formal principals AND pass the test!

The market has not been "educated" enough even today to appreciate, evaluate, and KNOW a good abstract expressionist painting from a contrived heartless and basically bad painting. It is a hard sell. When I see a good one (and I can afford it) I would buy it period. I think it is a very hard thing to paint abstractly and it is a very difficult discipline. Abstract sculpture is widely accepted (which is why I do it) relative to painting which is not. I like the challenge of abstract (expressionist) painting but rarely take it on, kind of like working out!! The practical matter is how to discard so many failed works $$$ to justify your own obsession .