From Concrete to Abstract and Back Again
Painting 05 - 1963 - John McCracken What causes artists to copy or mimic their environment or conversely make strange worlds out of what is unseen? Much has been written about why different artists have created art in the manner in which they have done over the course of history. It is hard to dispute the archaeological evidence that art was originally created as an integral part of the worship of a deity or deities for many primitive or pre modern people groups and this should not be ignored.
When the making of art was separated from its sacred function by industrial societies and "free" artists, we saw the rise of secular thinking and different understandings of what art is and what its function should be. With spiritual societies we see art depicting unseen abstract entities and concepts usually within a framework of mythologies. With the advent of secularism and the decline of the church in the West we witness the attempt to avoid the abstract with strict adherence to the "real" or what is seen! The advance of technology and the separation from nature and the land witnesses a return to abstraction in the 20th century as artists begin to yearn for a return to a more fundamental life with deeper meaning.
This migration between what is "seen" and "unseen" is no accident as artists in the process of making, attune themselves to deeper, inner realities and feelings. These "feelings" can only be expressed by the idiosyncratic use of colour, line, texture and form. Here i would postulate that if there is no other reality than what can be seen, tasted or felt in the here and now then the "process" of "making" becomes vital to "being." This is echoed in the words of Barnett Newman when he said "we are making it out of ourselves," in other words, the outer cathedrals of worship aren't valid anymore so we are constructing "inner secular cathedrals" in order to find a new way or purpose in art and life. The making of art then becomes an attempt to make something new out of the "self." This is a major leap from previous artists who for the most part painted representations of mythological characters, stories from the Bible or genre scenes and portraits. The exception here is probably Islamic culture where figuration was forbidden and was replaced with intricate pattern systems particularly in and on mosques.
When the making of art was separated from its sacred function by industrial societies and "free" artists, we saw the rise of secular thinking and different understandings of what art is and what its function should be. With spiritual societies we see art depicting unseen abstract entities and concepts usually within a framework of mythologies. With the advent of secularism and the decline of the church in the West we witness the attempt to avoid the abstract with strict adherence to the "real" or what is seen! The advance of technology and the separation from nature and the land witnesses a return to abstraction in the 20th century as artists begin to yearn for a return to a more fundamental life with deeper meaning.
This migration between what is "seen" and "unseen" is no accident as artists in the process of making, attune themselves to deeper, inner realities and feelings. These "feelings" can only be expressed by the idiosyncratic use of colour, line, texture and form. Here i would postulate that if there is no other reality than what can be seen, tasted or felt in the here and now then the "process" of "making" becomes vital to "being." This is echoed in the words of Barnett Newman when he said "we are making it out of ourselves," in other words, the outer cathedrals of worship aren't valid anymore so we are constructing "inner secular cathedrals" in order to find a new way or purpose in art and life. The making of art then becomes an attempt to make something new out of the "self." This is a major leap from previous artists who for the most part painted representations of mythological characters, stories from the Bible or genre scenes and portraits. The exception here is probably Islamic culture where figuration was forbidden and was replaced with intricate pattern systems particularly in and on mosques.
Who's Afraid Of Red, Yellow and Blue 4 - 1969-70 - Barnett Newman
Current - 1964 - Bridget Riley So what happens when an artist makes art and in particular abstract art? How does any artist proceed with the "making" from start to finish? One of my favourite books, "Sparks of Genius: The Thirteen Thinking Tools of The Worlds Most Creative People" by Robert S and Michele M Root-Bernstein details thirteen ways that creative people learn and utilise in their attempts to find/create new ideas or inventions. Whether the intention is towards the sacred or secular, from the outset, most creative people work through stages of understanding/knowing from imitation to innovation, gradually employing more and more of these thinking strategies. Recognising and skilfully applying observation, imaging, abstraction, recognition of patterns, formation of patterns, analogies, body thinking, empathy, dimensional thinking, modelling, play, transformation and synthesis, enables the artist to see the unseen and discover novel solutions to problems. Understanding the relationships or connections between concrete and abstract ideas or things is a prerequisite to invention. Those who take the time to learn these connections and apply the thirteen tools will find new possibilities in whatever field they may be working in.
Black Iris - 1906 - Georgia O'Keefe The see-saw swing between the concrete and the abstract can be witnessed in various forms across time as artists struggled to find their own voice. The thirteen tools have facilitated that creative to-ing and fro-ing, empowering artists to reach heights of excellence in creative expression. Painter Bridget Riley describes her paintings as “intimate dialogue(s) between my total being and the visual agents which constitute the medium … I have tried to realize visual and emotional energies simultaneously from the medium. My paintings are, of course, concerned with generating visual sensations, but certainly not to the exclusion of emotion. One of my aims is that these two responses shall be experienced as one and the same." Riley has an intimate grasp of these thinking strategies and uses them to achieve her aims of bringing visual sensation and emotions together in the viewer's mind.
Georgia O’Keeffe wrote, “I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at - not copy it.” She understood that through careful observation in order to get close to what she was trying to paint she had to re-invent what she saw and that would result in a "translation" of her subject not a copy of it. Her work skirted close to the edges of abstraction as she developed her own painting "voice."
Even the poet E. E. Cummings, wrote, “the artist, is not a man who describes but a man who FEELS.” He was quick to dismiss the idea that writers are just wordsmiths manipulating syntax and grammar. The feeling of the artist hunts for an avenue of expression via the mind using the creative thinking tools. The process might go either way, concrete to abstract or vice versa. The important thing is that the artist is able to bring into the world new "things" that open up new "perspectives" whether by poem, painting or other means through often very "abstract" feelings.
Georgia O’Keeffe wrote, “I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at - not copy it.” She understood that through careful observation in order to get close to what she was trying to paint she had to re-invent what she saw and that would result in a "translation" of her subject not a copy of it. Her work skirted close to the edges of abstraction as she developed her own painting "voice."
Even the poet E. E. Cummings, wrote, “the artist, is not a man who describes but a man who FEELS.” He was quick to dismiss the idea that writers are just wordsmiths manipulating syntax and grammar. The feeling of the artist hunts for an avenue of expression via the mind using the creative thinking tools. The process might go either way, concrete to abstract or vice versa. The important thing is that the artist is able to bring into the world new "things" that open up new "perspectives" whether by poem, painting or other means through often very "abstract" feelings.
What is the future of abstraction? Abstract art has been mainstream now for over 100 years and is accepted by larger and more diverse audiences than ever. There are still detractors who attempt to marginalise art that requires thought but the public is increasingly more aware that abstraction is the difficult but necessary twin of figurative art. For me, abstraction is the key to an open horizon because this kind of thinking underpins the "obvious" or what is easily "seen."
I'm inspired by artists that find their way through the maze of creative possibilities and then go on to do amazing things in the field of abstraction. Whether dealing from a sacred or secular viewpoint abstract thinking opens up a plethora of creative possibilities!
I'm inspired by artists that find their way through the maze of creative possibilities and then go on to do amazing things in the field of abstraction. Whether dealing from a sacred or secular viewpoint abstract thinking opens up a plethora of creative possibilities!
