Hi! I'm interested in abstract art. I realize that not everybody loves it; you might not even know what it is. There is a lot of confusion about abstract art. Some people think of, for example, an orange dot on a white canvas. Yes, that is abstract art, but there is a lot more to this kind of art than that. First, let's consider "abstract". Some art is very realistic. Portraits and scenes of street life are usually realistic, meaning they look like what was really there. Abstract art occupies a continuum from something that's just a little different from reality to the extreme case of being totally unrecognizable, like that orange dot. For example, a scene of a car that is blurred due to motion is what I call "abstracted". It does not look exactly like a stationary car. We can take it further and maybe show just a blob of car-shaped color. It is still recognizable as representing a car, but it does not look exactly like a car. This is an example of abstract art. It can range from almost realistic to totally non-representational.
Many of the early abstract artists had just participated in a World War (Could be I or II). An art historian friend told me that they could not bear to directly confront what they had experienced, so they presented it in more abstract forms. This is one recurring theme in abstract art. Another is to try to capture the feeling or memory of a scene without representing it in harsh detail; for example, the Impressionists painted a lot of what are clearly flowers, but do not look exactly like flowers; they show the masses of color and motion that the viewer experienced. There can be a great deal of emotion associated with this art. Other artists are interested in perception and they hold what I believe are conversations with other artists, rather than the viewing public; an example of this, to me, would be Mark Rothko, who painted from roughly the 1930s to the 1970s. His work frequently contains 3 blocks of color and nothing else; the juxtaposition of those colors causes a sort of shimmering effect when you look at it (hard to describe, but if you've seen it, you'll know it). This was an exploration of perception. That famous orange dot (and yes, I have seen such a painting) was about perception.
I cannot give you a precise definition of abstract art, but those are some examples. It fascinates me, by the way, that there is no generally accepted definition of the word "Art". One definition that has been proposed is that art is something that is created with intention, for the purpose of making an impact. While I sort of agree with that, I also recognize that if someone picks up a hammer and, with intention, hits me in the head, it will make an impression, and I will NOT call that art. So, maybe it's like the famous judge in the pornography case who said, "I can't tell you exactly what pornography is, but I know it when I see it!"
What are your thoughts?
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