Why do you think Abstract Art is not popular here?

#121

hcross: So your long post is no different from the earlier one liner that claimed abstract art is easier to do.

So, I gather from that pseudo-philosophy of hard and easy, good and bad, is that work and particularly the work of art has to be difficult to make and easy to understand. In other words, it’s the work of the incompetent to the utterly bewildered. Of course not, that’s not how things are measured.

p.s. Isn’t that what someone accused Albert Camus of saying about Abstract Art ? not art in general !!

#122

I don’t think that’s exactly what I was trying to say, but I’m not going to try and explain it any further, sorry…

hope you find your answer!

#123

I did find my answer the hardway, but I hope you were not disappointed or offended by my reply. Thanks for your contribution.

There are certainly problems with Abstract Arts, it’s been overly done in a way that it got disconnected from what people could appreciate by explicitely portraying itself as effortless and naiive. But that problem is inversely true with figurative arts where the piece is only about mastery of technique. How many people could model and render realistic female figures? hundreds if not thousands, but very few who could do it with high taste and elegance as Stahlberg.
Personally, I think no matter what the expression is about and in whatever medium, both technique and style carry similar weight. There is certaily a lot more quality figurative art than abstract, but that’s another question to ask and no excuse to dismiss abstract art from these forums.

#124

ashakarc, you obviously are trying to defend yourself indirectly because you are an abstract artist yourself. I mean come on, look at your avatar. Give it a rest and let people go their way.

#125

I don’t understand why you are attacking me !! Let’s be friendly here. I am not an abstract artist, and I don’t need to defend myself. I am a scholar and a professional architect, and these forums happen to grab my interest. Go your way dude, no one is standing in front of you but you.

Mrpeanut2: I am really sorry that someone like you stumbled on a thread like this. Just by checking your past posts in this thread and other forums with your hateful and outrageous remarks, I am stunned that you are still off the radar of the Mods.

#126

Vector art doesn’t get much fandom either (vector dedicated BBs aren’t very active places). More often than not it comes off too hard-edged, which is great for commercial art and story telling but it doesn’t work as well as softer edged Photoshop and Painter stuff for gathering a happy crowd. It seems its only glory comes from folks showing how they can create some object and make it look photo-realistic. While that’s really neat, it bores me… just take a photograph and save time :stuck_out_tongue: But I love the Illustrator/vector look.

I also don’t blame folks for not being thrilled with it. It has its place and it works very well in that “place”. It just doesn’t work well at, “gathering a happy crowd”… like comic artists compared to technical illustrators, one draws a crowd the other gets a quick look and a comment like, “wow that’s good”.

Anyways, don’t know why I was saying this… thinking out loud I guess…

#127

You’ve got it right there! That is one of the basic principles (at least for me) of viewing abstact art. As we have said before in this thread, you can stare at moss on a rock and be amazed, or the bark of a tree. You do this in a meditative space, not in a hyped up mental critiquing frame of mind. I can’t imagine looking at the bark of a tree and going, hmmm, that color is slightly wrong, or I don’t like that shape there :wink:

The same goes for abstract work. It isn’t asking you to compare with anything you have seen before, judging and weighing its worth. It is just asking you to sit, watch, and absorb. You can sit watch and absorb and nothing can happen, but that doesn’t necessarily matter, at least you tried. It is like meditating on the words of a Master or a mantra, something might not happen right now, but sometime down the track you may have an enlightening experience. I’m not saying that every piece of abstract art is going to be spiritually uplifting, just that it is a similar process to meditation and contemplation.

#128

I am stunned that you are still off the radar of the Mods.

don’t worry, he’s not

#129

I’ve done many abstract works in the past as well as traditional art BTW.

Abstract art is different from figurative, because it doesn’t depict real things. it can use shapes, colour, composition and more.
what i don’t understand is why here all think to science,maths, cogitation when thinking to abstract art . abstrat art relies more often in emotion than common people can think. color is emotion, composition too. sure, ther have been alot of artists which used a cognitive and scientific approach, but no one stops artists from evoking emotions.

Picasso’s works were not abstract, basically. they were modern. a different vision of nature and thus often based on it. he then brought natural shapes to extreme transforming them in bunch of elements in some work, but saying he was an abstract artists is uncorrect.

Kandinsky. he was abstract. he used shapes, of every kind to suggest emotion, music, and more. Mondrian. here another abstract. Miro is an abstract artist and so on.

abstract art isn’t popular because its way more difficult for common people to understand what’s under the hood. not that they always understand traditional art too. more often, simply, they appreciate and recognize figures and things they usually see in the real world.

that’s why a great abstract artists always come from a figurative experience at least. figures are more difficult to draw correctly because they have inherent rules to which they obey :volume in perspective, light, texture and more so an artist must be very well trained to make an excellent figurative work.

but since a painting is a flat surface, covered wiith paint, figurative rules had to be broken at a certain point, even because human vision isn’t the only way to represent things, and this is were modern art comes. a different vision about nature and world.
then, to go to the extreme of this process, even figuration was abandoned in favour of pure emotion, colour, abstract shapes.

Even if its more difficult to understand, in the hands of good artists even abstract can be great art and in certain cases can be superior to figurative art.

#130

Don’t worry, this guy thinks that every thread is this thread. Just ignore him, he will find himself alone with his problems like we did on this thread, i’m glad that noone replied to him. BTW mods make a wonderful job, they keep their eyes open even if you think they’re not here.

#131

Miro is in fact a Surrealist artist and not abstract. Good point about Picasso though, people seem to think he is ‘abstract’ just because he isn’t figurative and his forms are strange and unrealistic. I know when I used to dislike modern art I used to label anything modern that I didn’t like ‘abstract’ :slight_smile:

Here is the dictionary definition for ‘abstract art’:

art that does not attempt to represent external, recognizable reality but seeks to achieve its effect using shapes, forms, colors, and textures

#132

On Miro “the most Surrealist of us all”. André Breton (The theorist who put the Surrealist Manifesto)

One of his famous quotes:
Let us not mince words: the marvelous is always beautiful, anything marvelous is beautiful, in fact only the marvelous is beautiful.
--------------------------------------------

It’s interesting how we sometimes mix up styles to artwork, and I am guilty of it too. Miro’s work is great inspiration to abstract art, although historically falls under surrealism. But, those movements were never fixed to a style, it’s the greatness of the artwork that put the definition to these so called styles. Most of these movements were ideological constructs with novel view to the world. Another reason, why Art History is facinating.

#133

Yeh, the strict definition of what is abstract makes it true, Picasso used symbols in his most famous Cubist works. Right, many think that he wasn’t a true abstractionist. But who cares !! He was intelligent enough to realize that communication between the artwork and the viewer has to be maintained at some level. He was a humanist after all.

#134

I have’nt read all the previous posts but I thinks it quite simple answer (first thing that pops up in my head) cg is in 90% to make creations look real, like grafics for games and movies. thats why abstract is’nt so popular. and vector for that matter.

#135

It’s worth bearing in mind. Terms like Surrealism, Impressionism and Cubism. Are useful art historical devices. That can link and categorise trends in the the development of art. So, while it is true, Joan Miro was a surrealist, and did surrealist works. He also most certainly did, make purely abstract work. Likewise Wassily Kandinskey, who is most well known as an abstract painter, did have a figurative output and is associated with a largely figurative German expressionist group Known as Die Brucke.

There was no single abstract movement as such. (Until the abstract expressionists in the 1950’s). Rather it took on many forms, arrived at from several directions. Monets’ late, Water Lilly paintings, are widely considered to be an important precursor to the abstract expressionists. Indeed, without the titles, it would be difficult to recognise a representational origin to some of these sublime paintings.

Remmers. Yes it does seem quite simple, on the face of it. CG is primarily associated with the entertainment industry. i.e., Cinema, where realism is of course most important. The question does seem to have broadened up a little, during the course of this thread. And for me at least, has become quite interesting;

In the plastic arts of painting and sculpture. Lots of artists choose to work in an abstract manner. So why not in CG. Has CG some inherent limitations, that make it unsuitable for purely abstract work? Or maybe there are lots of abstract artists working in CG, but show their work elsewhere. Is there a conscious, or unconscious censure of abstract work on at CG talk? Perhaps abstract work in general is not widely appreciated, if not, why not?

#136

Good point about the definition of styles/genres/movements. I agree. I guess you can theorize endlessly about art, but at a basic level it is all about the artist and what she/he is creating. Genres may not fit, artists make the genres!

It must be that this website just doesn’t attract (and accept) abstract CG art. I completed a Bachelor of Digital Arts at University last year with a major focus on animation and digital video. There certainly was a major emphasis on abstract/contemporary styles and only a couple of students just focused on photorealism. I have noticed that the schools that aim purely at industry/film/entertainment seem to almost entirely care about teaching students about realism, how to make something look real; how to get the student a job in the industry. Whereas schools that have more of a fine arts background are more concerned with giving the student a background in classic and contemporary art, and pushing the student’s own artistic style (whether it be abstract or realism).

I guess what it comes down to is whether this site (well CGsociety in general) is just about the entertainment industry and realism, or if it is about CG as a medium for the generation of art (whether it be for entertainment, or purely for arts sake). Is it a site to represent art and artists in general, or is it being selective and only representing a certain part of the CG art medium.

Looking at the big banner at the top of the site it says: “CGSociety: Enhancing Digital Arts”. If this is really its goal, I think it should be accepting of all forms of digital arts!

#137

I totally agree.

There is definitely a distinction to be made. Between job training, and art education. Enhancing digital arts is an inspired idea. That can only benefit, from the contribution of artists from as broad a spectrum of practice as possible.

#138

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