I thought about it a little bit and I’ve concluded that abstract can be commented on. I find things like image composition and colour use and contrast all can be commented on to better the quality of the art.
I have some colour experiments which are pretty much abstract and I’ve seen a WIP lately which was abstract or somewhat surrealist I guess. Works fine, that can’t be it.
Most good abstract art is often preocupied with issues that cannot be translated into a digital format. Having said that, I suppose most good art, which was not intended to exist as a digital image probably isn’t done justice on a computer screen.
Gord
It would appear to me that the bulk of most website designs involve abstraction to a large degree; just in terms of layout, color, etc.
Most of the 60s Modernist period involved elements of texture, particularly in terms of how the paint was applied, as in the work of Clifford Still, Franz Kline, or Hans Hoffman. Seeing those on a computer screen would be underwhelming. A 10 foot wide Pollock painting on a 15 inch screen would be also. I think this digital medium may be too limiting in that sense.
-David
To a certain level, you may be right, but for the most of that work is considered as design. Design by itself could start with abstract ideas, but the most important thing that differentiate it from painting art is the function. With function, the association of the different elements of the work follows certain program of requirements. In web site design, you have the usability of the interface, and the programmability of whatever function in there.
With abstract there is a “construct”, but stripped of direct signifier, unless symbols are used. I do prefer symbols in an abstract painting rather than an open invitation to the unknown and ambiguous.
With regard to the fitness to the computer screen, I don’t see CG is necessarily limited to it. But, certainly sometimes there are a lot more details pronounced in an abstract painting that require it to be large enough to be seen.
I’m not sure you can call that art neither those who do that are artists. Similarly, those who trace a photo and smudge the original pixels with a painterly look thinking they are being creative.
hey I don’t want o rain on anyone’s parade but …
I personally find abstract art quite refreshing and have noticedthat it is really enjoyable…in real life with physical form…media, scale, depth texture etc…
and it is not all about process… I personally believe all art is about becoming lost in experiencing the piece
I don’t think so much digital stuff lends itself to “fine art”… you are limited to experiencing it on monitors or projections.
face it what is on this site is predominantly sci-fi/fantasy book cover art. For a lot of us in this community that is what pays the bills…
personally I’d rather create art in traditional media… a glitch or a HD crash ain’t gonna destroy my work… seeing work in true physical presence makes a big ole difference
I do thin kthat digital media can provide a n outlet for roughing out and planning before final executuiion because of the flexibility
those of you gluedto your monitors mighht find it worthwhile to get out into the real world , open studios, local galleries, museums and check out art
My answer is simple and one people probably won’t react well to. I simply dislike abstract art. I don’t ‘see’ anything in it. I think it’s produced by people who don’;t have the talent to create representational art. I went through UCLA with my major being art, so it’s not like I haven’t been exposed to it. I had to sit through yawn inducing explanations of what this or that artist was trying to say when in my head my main thought was ‘bullshit’. The use of color? I balance colors without even having to think about it. My main influences in art, even CG are the old masters and even more, the pre raphaelites and the illustrators of the 20s and 30s and 40s. My own art hasn’t reached the level I want it to, but I am ainimg toward a pre raphaelite style adapted to 3D. Abstract art just isn’t a part of my world.
It seems to me that Hugh and Gord, have hit the mark. In that digital media, currently does not lend itself well to Abstract artistic expression.
Although many digital artists work in virtual 3d, the output is very much two dimensional. Screens and printed media have very uniform, flat surfaces.
Practitioners of the plastic arts have no such limitations. They can use textures and materials, that reference real world experience, in ways that are redolent and visceral. Abstract Art is meant to promote reverie, and facilitate deeply felt responses, that have something in common with reading poetry, or listening to music.
Remember, CG is an art form in its infancy. It’s strength currently lies in providing purely visual realistic illusion, that augments and supports cinema and photography. In short, it is essentially an entertainment medium.
As to the reason why abstract is not popular here; Bonestructures answer probably gives as clear an indication as any.
Hey Bonestructure,
I know where you are coming from there. Art school is enough to put anyone of abstract art. The funny thing is that I have started to appreciated it more after leaving art school. I think that a lot of the abstract art that is shown in art history lessons is the stuff that is trying to be clever or inovative (pollock etc) wheras a lot of the best stuff is just trying to be “quite nice”. Once you see abstract painting as just “quite nice” then you might one day see one which is “really quite nice”. There are good abstract painters and bad abstract painters I think, but the good ones make paintings which people buy and put in their living room. The paintings on gallery walls are often the ones that people had to MARKET to sell. It is the marketing bulshit that gets in the way of good art and which gets paintings into history books… so we end up with a slanted view.
There is an un-written rule in the gallery world that says “never let the artist talk about their art”. Gallery owners think they know best.
So I think that abstract art CAN be “quite nice” but the intellectual establishment wants it to be more than that (like poetry or music) - and that can ruin it to the extent that people end up hating it.
It is like… capitalism+art=bulshit.
I’ll chime in on this subject.
Yes abstract art IS far more difficult to understand and requires the observer to be visually educated for what this might mean.
Most people with no artistic background seek to find Familiar imagery to hang on in a painting, and thus and abstract form alienates them, it scares them 'cause they can’t find any corresponding point.
True, nowdays, with the way the art stockmarket and galleries work, anyone can produce any kind of piece of crap, and then it might be promoted by the business as a work of a genius.
In abstract art, there are still points one can judge and consider irrelevant of just subjective taste: Composition, colour, etc, apply to all paintings iconic or abstact
The point is, an artist to be able to create abstraction out of strength and NOT out of weakness.
Knowing how to draw, proportions, anatomy etc, is the alphabet for an artist.
From then on he can free himself and create any art he is able of.
There is a distinction between a creator, and a craftsman, the latter being just a technician, very often lacking the inspiration of the creator.
Too much preccupation over technicality will loose the creative aspect.
The knowledge must be there but not as an end in itself …
To understand abstract art, you have to realise that Art has a cognitive function. Quite separate to its illustrative, commercial and political applications.
Something like the relationship that exists, between pure scientific research, (that most of us don’t understand), and the technological spinoffs from that research, that we all enjoy.
Most of the conventions we see in Movies, illustration, CG, comics, advertising, everywhere. All make use, of discoveries made by artists, centuries ago. For example: ‘one point perspective’ discovered during the Renaissance. Controposto, see Michaelangelo ‘David’, Leonardo’s Use of chiaroscuro (light and shade), and his discovery of the effect of using a 3 quarter view of the head, in portraiture. ‘The Golden section’, what many here know as the rule of thirds. And many other compositional devices that are in common, almost automatic usage today, were all discovered during the 15th century.
You see Art, just like Science, Philosophy and Theology, is something that human beings use, to create metaphors for reality. And the goal of art at that time was realism.
So, once the artistic representation of reality reached a zenith, did artists just stop, give themselves a pat on the back and say ‘yes that’s it. We’ve done it’. Not likely. Some realised it still was not good enough, that there is a lot more to reality, than describing a surface. After all no one ever walked into a room, looked at a painting and said, " Wow! I thought that was a real six inch high woman pouring milk into a bowl" (in this case"The Kitchen Maid" by Vermeer):
http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_assets/SK-A-2344?lang=en
It’s more than 15 years since I graduated, so for the moment I just can’t remember the name of the artist who toward the end of the 19th century. First noted that all paintings are abstract, no matter what you do, they remain no more than ‘arrangements of colour next to one another’. If that’s what a painting is, the challenge for some is to see what a painting can do, so to speak.
While most of what we see in every day use around us today, borrows ideas from the 15th century. Artists like Braque and Picasso early in the 20th century, were using multiple perspective views and multiple positions in time, in their images. Ideas paralleled by the Scientific thinking of the time, notably Einstein’s theories concerning simultaneity and relativity.
Artists are still engaged in visual research. It’s not always pretty or nice. But there are very often universal benefits to gained from the risks taken, and insights gained by artists engaged on that path.
How is cognitive function unique to abstraction? This function applies to all forms and styles of art and cannot be separated from the “illustrative” one. You are comparing two unrelated things here. In your comparison, you are suggesting that abstraction has no illustrative value, but purely cognitive. If that’s what you meant, then it’s incorrect.
Cognition is the experience of knowing. Every mental process can be cognitive. The non-visual differences between figurative art and abstract art lie in the way the spectator assimilate or interpret the reality with his/her own mind and based on past experience.
some times figurative can’t explain all subjects or themes, so artists use abstraction to communicate. Some artists can communicate visually while others can’t. Abstract art is still new because their aren’t any artists who could take it and expose it in a way to mass media. Abstract art doesn’t have to be a singular 2d still but when it is it turns into an abstract ‘fine-art’ piece, which is cool.
Minds advanced, info is easily accessible, everyone in the world knows abstract art but would mind at times having to be surprisingly stare at a piece for longer than 15 minutes without being hi out of their minds. abstract art isn’t the type of art that gets or dare i say should be taken advantage of everyday by the populous, because it tires and drains people. It’s like going camping and staring at the campfire, it makes you think and wonder and visualise and your in bliss, than you wake up the next day with sore eyes and brain forgetting most of the vortex of deep meditative thoughts and sights displayed by the source of abstraction.
Thank you, thank you…thank you…please, no need for applause…just throw money
Abstract (and modern fine art) is the masturbation of artists. Your only pleasing yourself and a few wierdos that are into watching you do it -> (the 'educated’ art world)
abstract is just the simplification of everything you learn in your first year of art school. Composition, color theory, texture, mood… blah blah blah.
so the thing you do is, learn all the rules, but dont apply them to anything! Then you just get exaples of well thought out color and composition. In case you didnt notice im not a fan of modern art. Art is about communication, and abstract is a very weak language.
[QUOTE=ashakarc]How is cognitive function unique to abstraction? This function applies to all forms and styles of art and cannot be separated from the “illustrative” one. You are comparing two unrelated things here. In your comparison, you are suggesting that abstraction has no illustrative value, but purely cognitive. If that’s what you meant, then it’s incorrect.QUOTE]
It’s not unique to abstraction.
The point is, that all art, and science for that matter is abstract. The cognitive function, (and it is only one function of the visual arts), lies in our need to understand and describe our world, and experience.
It is the realisation that the art objects that we create, are in fact just that. Objects in their own right, just like other objects, man made or natural.
Paintings or sculptures, no matter how realistic they appear, are only what they are. In the case of painting, an arrangement of colours and marks next to each other on canvas. This is what led to the development of what is now termed abstract art.
the realistic representation of things, in art, ( i.e., describing the surface appearance of things ), has gone as far as it can go. We know now, that how we feel about things, emotionally, spiritually and psychologically, is as important to the way we understand our world, as how things appear to us.
Abstraction is an addition, or rather an expansion of the vast lexicon available for artistic expression. Not by any means a replacement or threat to what’s gone before.
Well this sort of attitude prevents any sort of serious arguements doesn’t it. I’ll just give it a go.
It’s been proven that certain colours give the viewer certain emotional responses, the careful variations and choice of placement would be an art.
I’d argue the simpel depiction of a dude holding a gun would be masturbation since it strikes no more than a level of testosteron. :curious:
[quote=“PSR”]
i’m Gonna have to Go Ahead and Add ThaT to My LibrarY of quotes BuddyBoyyyyy
[b]copied and pasted from wikipedia
Abstract art[/b] is now generally understood to mean art that does not depict objects in the natural world, but instead uses shapes and colours in a non-representational or non-objective way. In the very early 20th century, the term was more often used to describe art, such as Cubist and Futurist art, that does represent the natural world, but does so by capturing something of its immutable intrinsic qualities rather than by imitating its external appearance. See Abstraction.
Abstract pattern making has an ancient history dating back to the earliest decorations on textiles, pottery and so on. However, the idea that the arrangement of shapes and colours is not simply to be understood as design, but as fine art dates from the nineteenth century when photography began to make the illustrative function of visual art obsolete. Even before the widespread use of photography some artists, such as James McNeill Whistler were placing greater emphasis on visual sensation than the depiction of objects. Whistler argued that art should concern itself with the harmonious arrangement of colours, just as music deals with the harmonious arrangement of sounds. Whistler’s painting Nocturne in Black and Gold (1875) is often seen as a major move towards abstraction. Later artists such as Wassily Kandinsky argued that modern science dealt with dynamic forces, revealing that matter was ultimately spiritual in character. Art should display the spiritual forces behind the visual world. Wassily Kandinsky and Kasimir Malevich are generally seen as the first fully abstract artists. Kandinky’s art is sometimes called ‘soft edged’, while Malevich’s is ‘hard edged’. This distinction is repeated in later abstract artists. The blurred, dynamic lines and colors used by Kandinsky developed into Abstract Expressionism, while the use of overlapping or interacting geometrical forms is found in the work of Piet Mondrian and many later artists such as the op artists of the 1960s.
To quote abstract artist, Robert Stark, "Every day is a test of each painting’s ability to stand on its own. Each painting is subject to being changed, to being reworked or scraped and repainted as long as it remains in the studio. Where I often used to spend weeks on a painting, attempting to ‘make a picture,’ now my concerns are more about the energy of light, the mass of space, the emotions of shadows. I want the painting to meet the viewer somewhere in the middle, where the viewer brings his own experiences to bear in understanding and feeling what he is seeing.
I want my paintings to achieve the complexity and density of poetry or of a symphony, to build suggestive layers, implicit felt meaning, not merely to be entertaining bit of color to seduce the eye. I want my paintings to be accessible to children as well as adults, and to be so simply and directly painted that it shows the act of painting for the joy and excitement of it.
Proof is in the viewing."
I TOTALY agree that certain colors, shapes, textures can make the viewer experience certain sensations just by simply viewing them. BUT!..
if i go to a gallery, on one wall, i nail up a flat 5ft by 5ft canvas painted cadmium red…
and on the other wall, a 5ft by 5ft canvas painted red with a sinister figure staring into the eyes of the viewer…
the viewers that come to the gallery will spend 99% of there time looking at the canvas with the figure. The other canvas (just red) is BORING! yes it still gives the viewer that sense of anger, and foreboding… but the canvas with the figure gives that same emotion X10 because there is something to read in it they can identify with.
both paintings used the same process of emotion (color) but the figure piece gave more.
so yes, i UNDRESTAND abstract art, i know how to read it,(i went to art center) i just dont like it. I dont see the point in puting that much effort into art work that 90% of the population doesnt give a crap about. Unless you are only doing i for yourself (more power to you) just dont be offended when the ‘un-educated’ public hates your stuff. we grew up with leonardo and norman rockwell, 3 blue squares and one red cercle cant compete.
Well, in my opinion art SHOULD BE about pleasing yourself. Do you make your art to please others? If so that is your choice. But last time I checked masturbation was fun (so I hear, hehe) and if creating the kind of art you personally enjoy is the same thing, then I say: wack away!
Abstract art is one of the bestselling genres. It is featured in thousands of galleries around the world and is a favorite choice by people to decorate large portions of the walls at homes, hotels, etc.
Apparently it’s more than just a few “weirdos” that enjoy it.
Just like some people enjoy instrumental music with no singing, (like me) others love rap music. Every artform brings it’s own level of stimuli. Some allow for more interpretation than others. Whether you are educated about art or not is not a factor. You can appreciate abstract art either for the deeper meaning or just for looking pretty. It’s up to the viewer!