People put down abstract art on the basis that there is no skill required. It is commonly believed that it necessarily requires skill to make representational art, but that it does not necessarily require skill to make abstract art. It is also commonly assumed that an abstract painter cannot necessarily paint representationally, but that a representational painter can always paint abstractly if he/she wants to. This, again, is the assumption that there is no skill involved in abstract art making, or that the skill involved is something of a subset of representational skills.
We know that there is skill to representational art, because we usually can't produce it until we have spent time and energy "learning how to" make it. The proof is easy to see. Our initial efforts are far less representational than our later efforts. The improvement is due to learning skills. The main skill is the heightened awareness of the visual world. We learn what to look for. This heightened awareness is gained in unison with the actual act of drawing, and so our ability to see and our ability to render are really just two aspects of the same heightened awareness of the visual world.
So we see that there is skill and learning involved. One could argue that there is skill involved in making representational images, but that representational "art" is quite another matter. But for the moment we'll assume that a competently made representational image is art, and that the competence of the image is based on it's correspondence to something we can look at in the world.
With (non-objective) abstract art, there is no referent to the outside world in the artwork, no illusion of normal reality. Instead, it seems to be simply mark-making, with no way to assess from the image, whether those marks are correct. With abstact art, the correctness of the marks isn't based on external reality, but on the internal reality of the artist. Representational art is extrospective, whereas abstract art is introspective. But, being introspective, we have the seemingly impossible task of corresponding the image to the internal state of the mind from which it was born.
If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound. That is the conundrum of abstract art. Whether the tree makes a sound or not is based upon how we verify sounds having been made in the world. If sound requires a human to hear it, then the tree made no sound. However, if we consider that sound is the product of vibrations carried through the air, and we infer that a tree falling in the woods would certainly have to create such vibrations, then we can know that the tree would make a sound... that it DID make a sound.
The same logic applies to non objective abstract art. If we define "art" as being able to verify the image in reference to reality, then non objective abstract art is not art at all. However, if we realize that mark making can be made in a mindful, introspective manner, then we can see that it is art.
Anyone can throw paint at a canvas and insist that they are an artist working in the manner of jackson pollock. And a canvas produced this way might not be difficult to debunk visually. However, whether or not it is art is not based upon our ability to verify it, but the process of working that went into it. The random paint slinger did not employ a mindful approach, and therefore did not engage in an artistic process. Hence, the work is not art. If the artist worked earnestly and honestly in making the image, it is art... and the process he employed is an artistic process. This artistic process is a certain activity of mind which, like any activity of mind, has a certain nature, and probably is not something that everyone can necessarily do. I see it as primarily introspective... a way of relating imagery to the mind, often in a very fleeting way. This is certainly not a perspective that everyone shares equally.
Showing posts with label abstract art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abstract art. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
What is the basis for color decisions in abstract art?
Abstraction seems to have evolved in terms of abstracting form. We have forms considered considered spatially (cubists), forms considered temporally (futurists), forms considered semantically (Mondrian), forms reduced to essentials (Brancusi), forms rejected (abstract expressionists). And so on. Color isn't related to form, value is.
SO... What is the role of color in the evolution of abstract art?
The expressionists use colors to convey emotions, such that Matisse could paint a face green because he simply felt like it. Gaugin made color choices based on the theory that the color one felt is more real than the local color. Yet these seem more like subjective, emotional reactions to color, and to the cultural association of color with the subject matter of art, rather than an abstraction of color.
Mondrian seems to come closest to abstracting color in his reduction of his color palette to red, yellow, and shades of grey... seeing these as essential. However, I'm not sure why they are essential. Perhaps the use of red on his palette is Mondrian's way of reducing all the hues of red down to a single hue, which then becomes the essential red. This makes sense, because the process of abstraction is one of removing particularity, of removing the variety and nuance of the "real world".
Of course, this is problematic, because the red he chooses to be the essential red is, itself, simply a particular hue of red. This reminds me of Aristotle's argument against Plato's theory of forms, whereby he points out that the form of a tree (of which all earthly trees are merely an imperfect reflection) must either be a particular tree... or no tree at all. Both alternatives break down Platos theory of forms. The perfect "form" of a tree is really what we understand to be the "abstract idea" of a tree, which is not a tree at all. Plato posited a realm of abstractions, whereby the abstractions were actual real things, which he called the forms of things. However, they can't literally exist, either here in reality, or in an alternate reality.
Applying this same logic to the abstraction of color in a painting we can see that the abstraction of color, like any abstraction, is a mental product, not a literal thing. Since art is made of literal things... and since everything on the canvas is a particular thing.... then no thing on the canvas can be literally abstract. In fact, the term "literal abstraction" is probably a contradiction in terms. So, Mondrian cannot assert that his literal red is an abstract red... it's just another hue.
However, it occurs to me that perhaps Mondrian can say that "In my paintings, the red I choose to use will always be the same, and this should be read as the reduction of all red hues to a single, essential red". The viewer will then relax his critical eye, and accept that this red is the essential red "in the context of this painting".
You cannot paint abstractions... because they aren't literal... you can only paint your representation of them.
SO... What is the role of color in the evolution of abstract art?
The expressionists use colors to convey emotions, such that Matisse could paint a face green because he simply felt like it. Gaugin made color choices based on the theory that the color one felt is more real than the local color. Yet these seem more like subjective, emotional reactions to color, and to the cultural association of color with the subject matter of art, rather than an abstraction of color.
Mondrian seems to come closest to abstracting color in his reduction of his color palette to red, yellow, and shades of grey... seeing these as essential. However, I'm not sure why they are essential. Perhaps the use of red on his palette is Mondrian's way of reducing all the hues of red down to a single hue, which then becomes the essential red. This makes sense, because the process of abstraction is one of removing particularity, of removing the variety and nuance of the "real world".
Of course, this is problematic, because the red he chooses to be the essential red is, itself, simply a particular hue of red. This reminds me of Aristotle's argument against Plato's theory of forms, whereby he points out that the form of a tree (of which all earthly trees are merely an imperfect reflection) must either be a particular tree... or no tree at all. Both alternatives break down Platos theory of forms. The perfect "form" of a tree is really what we understand to be the "abstract idea" of a tree, which is not a tree at all. Plato posited a realm of abstractions, whereby the abstractions were actual real things, which he called the forms of things. However, they can't literally exist, either here in reality, or in an alternate reality.
Applying this same logic to the abstraction of color in a painting we can see that the abstraction of color, like any abstraction, is a mental product, not a literal thing. Since art is made of literal things... and since everything on the canvas is a particular thing.... then no thing on the canvas can be literally abstract. In fact, the term "literal abstraction" is probably a contradiction in terms. So, Mondrian cannot assert that his literal red is an abstract red... it's just another hue.
However, it occurs to me that perhaps Mondrian can say that "In my paintings, the red I choose to use will always be the same, and this should be read as the reduction of all red hues to a single, essential red". The viewer will then relax his critical eye, and accept that this red is the essential red "in the context of this painting".
You cannot paint abstractions... because they aren't literal... you can only paint your representation of them.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Color abstraction
I have been mulling over the idea that...
basic geometric forms give specific identity to objects in reality that have none
I was exploring this idea, using "nose" as an example. We all have a simple concept of the nose as something sticking out from the face with holes in it for smelling things. Like all concepts, it unifies all the noses we have ever seen, while leaving out the details. The absence of details is oddly empowering. I say "odd", because we usually associate "knowledge of reality" as being knowledge of actual things in reality. But reality is so overwhelming, that if we tried to contain all of it's specific things in our minds, we would fail. Consciousness cannot contain reality, it can only represent reality, and these representations cannot presume to be the thing itself. Concepts give us power over reality precisely because they give us distance. Power (or usefulness) is relationship too, just like knowledge, and so it must be detached from reality in this way. One has to detach from literal reality in order to gain conceptual reality.
So then I shifted focus from the ordinary concept of a nose, to a "visual concept" of a nose. So I drew three views of a nose (line drawings)... one in profile, one in 3/4 view, and one in frontal view. Immediately these present a problem. First of all, for any of the three, it is not obvious where the nose should begin and end. This relates to the "continuity problem" inherent in the continuous shapes in the reality of the face. The second problem, is that the frontal view of the nose (for instance) cannot be "rotated in the mind" to produce the 3/4 or profile view, because the frontal view doesn't abstract anything general about the nose. The same goes for the other two views, which cannot be rotated to produce other views. These three views of the nose are NOT abstractions of the nose, they are simply icons for (or symbols, or signs) that tell us "nose thing" in different position, but they do not function as visual abstractions. Because they strive to "look like" a nose, they represent the nose using specific details, which makes them simply "another nose" in reality. Interestingly, this is the exact point of one of Aristotle's criticisms of Plato's forms... that if they literally exist in another realm, then they must be something in particular, which means they couldn't be any thing in general, which means they can't be forms.
basic geometric forms give specific identity to objects in reality that have none
I was exploring this idea, using "nose" as an example. We all have a simple concept of the nose as something sticking out from the face with holes in it for smelling things. Like all concepts, it unifies all the noses we have ever seen, while leaving out the details. The absence of details is oddly empowering. I say "odd", because we usually associate "knowledge of reality" as being knowledge of actual things in reality. But reality is so overwhelming, that if we tried to contain all of it's specific things in our minds, we would fail. Consciousness cannot contain reality, it can only represent reality, and these representations cannot presume to be the thing itself. Concepts give us power over reality precisely because they give us distance. Power (or usefulness) is relationship too, just like knowledge, and so it must be detached from reality in this way. One has to detach from literal reality in order to gain conceptual reality.
So then I shifted focus from the ordinary concept of a nose, to a "visual concept" of a nose. So I drew three views of a nose (line drawings)... one in profile, one in 3/4 view, and one in frontal view. Immediately these present a problem. First of all, for any of the three, it is not obvious where the nose should begin and end. This relates to the "continuity problem" inherent in the continuous shapes in the reality of the face. The second problem, is that the frontal view of the nose (for instance) cannot be "rotated in the mind" to produce the 3/4 or profile view, because the frontal view doesn't abstract anything general about the nose. The same goes for the other two views, which cannot be rotated to produce other views. These three views of the nose are NOT abstractions of the nose, they are simply icons for (or symbols, or signs) that tell us "nose thing" in different position, but they do not function as visual abstractions. Because they strive to "look like" a nose, they represent the nose using specific details, which makes them simply "another nose" in reality. Interestingly, this is the exact point of one of Aristotle's criticisms of Plato's forms... that if they literally exist in another realm, then they must be something in particular, which means they couldn't be any thing in general, which means they can't be forms.
Formalizing this drawing issue of drawing made it clear in my head, and I made an interesting connection to the issue of color. I have been studying and considering the issues of color for a long time now (well, since 2004). Color is addressed in art school both directly and indirectly, and I have also read a lot on the subject, etc, etc. This studying has had the effect of stuffing my head full of various details, facts, observations, and pragmatic suggestions, as well as any number of conceptual organizations of paint on a palette. Obviously, that kind of stuff is not satisfying for me, as I cannot rest until I reach the magic, transcendent moment of a unified theory and practice. I think I just achieved this in the past few days.
I bought this book called "Still Life Painting Atelier" last week, and began reading it. I was hoping it would be on the level of the "Classical Drawing Atelier" and "Classical Painting Atelier" books by Juliette Aristedes, in terms of weaving deep thought about art into the subject matter of Still Life Painting. Unfortunately, it does not do that. Instead, it is simply a simple step by step book that describes some basic palettes and approaches to still life painting. But a funny thing happened as I sat there reading the chapter on the Blue/Orange two color palette. A light went off in my head. The author showed the two color palette in a photo, along with a range of mixes that could be produced by it. The author mixed the the orange and blue to get a neutral, and then between orange and neutral he mixed a dull orange, and between blue and neutral, he mixed a dull blue. Then he tinted those 5 little piles of paint (which were dark) to get a middle value, and then tinted some more to get a light valued mix. In all, there were 15 little piles of paint.
It was all very simple. But within those 15 mixes existed all the fundamental elements of painting.
HUE: the tube colors of orange (burnt sienna actually) and blue (ultramarine blue).
CHROMA: The mixes between the orange and the blue.
VALUE: The tinting of the tube orange, tube blue, and the 3 mixes in between them.
TEMPERATURE: between the orange and the blue.
With that simple palette on could model form, have a range of neutrals, and have contrasts of hue, value, and temperature.
The breakthrough thought here was this... that THAT is exactly what painting is. It is representing reality via (first drawing), but by modeling form with value... of creating depth with neutrals... of creating interesting with contrasts of value, temperature, hue. And so on. Those are the ESSENTIAL aspects of painting.
It's interesting that HUE, CHROMA, VALUE, and TEMPERATURE are often described as the essential aspects of color... BUT what I have found is that these are ALSO the essential aspects of painting. This last point is not taught very well from my experience, and I think I know what the reason is. The reason is that we presume that the purpose of painting is to match reality. In attempting to match what we see we are drawn so close to the phenomenon that we cannot see it for what it is, i.e., we cannot see it for it's essence. We have not distance from it, and therefore cannot form useful conceptions of it.
The essence of artistic vision is related to value, chroma, temperature, and hue. Because value, chroma, and temperature are all aspects of hue, we can (in a sense) drop hue from the equation. Hue is the least important aspect of color in art, though in our minds it seems the most important. This is not to say that hue doesn't matter, but simply that hue becomes the omitted measure of color, relative to the other aspects of color.
Given this, it is clear how misleading much color theory and painting classes are. These classes put undue emphasis on hue. And this reinforces the mistaken notion that matching the specific hues in reality is the objective of painting. I myself have been totally sidetracked into considering hue as the most important thing. For instance, wondering how many reds could be mixed from a collection of tube reds. I have wondered how many reds could be mixed by combining various combinations of burnt sienna, cadmium red, indian red, iron oxide, etc. I have actually felt guilty that i didn't spend hours mixing up the endless permutations that could be created from them. I thought that the answer must certain lie in that. And the same logic applies to the yellows, and blues, etc.. to all the colors. And once you have mixed 100,000 variations on all those colors, you can turn around and start combining the reds with the yellows, and yellows with blues, etc. And this could (and would) go on endlessly, as you attempt to reconstruct every possible combination of every color that can possible be mixed. And then you start in with tinting and shading them, and so on for forever. This endless exercise is a literal analogy with the mindlessness that is inherent in trying to match reality. Such an approach implies that painting is simply the matching of a infinite spectrum of colors.
It is the reality trap. Thinking you have to match natures hues is the reality trap, and allows for no conceptualization or control.
Just like the forms of the face, the hues in the world are infinitely nuanced and continuous, such that no order can be found in them other than what we bring. The means of ordering form is geometric abstraction. The means of ordering color are the abstractions of value, chroma, temperature. To restate the idea from above...
value, chroma, and temperature give specific identity to hues in reality that have none
Once hue is dropped from the equation, simple palettes suddenly seem relevant, and not simply as training exercises. This is another point of failure in art teaching... that limited palettes are presented as training grounds for full palettes, where the superior virtue of the full palette is the range of hues that can be mixed from it. This reinforces the idea that matching nature's colors is the goal of painting.
So, I am really excited by this breakthrough idea. It settles in my mind much of what was confusing.
As a side note, I was thinking that the obsession of with specific hues might be related to impressionism, with it's emphasis on impressions of light (hue) rather than on form and space, which is more an issue of value, chroma, and temperature.
I bought this book called "Still Life Painting Atelier" last week, and began reading it. I was hoping it would be on the level of the "Classical Drawing Atelier" and "Classical Painting Atelier" books by Juliette Aristedes, in terms of weaving deep thought about art into the subject matter of Still Life Painting. Unfortunately, it does not do that. Instead, it is simply a simple step by step book that describes some basic palettes and approaches to still life painting. But a funny thing happened as I sat there reading the chapter on the Blue/Orange two color palette. A light went off in my head. The author showed the two color palette in a photo, along with a range of mixes that could be produced by it. The author mixed the the orange and blue to get a neutral, and then between orange and neutral he mixed a dull orange, and between blue and neutral, he mixed a dull blue. Then he tinted those 5 little piles of paint (which were dark) to get a middle value, and then tinted some more to get a light valued mix. In all, there were 15 little piles of paint.
It was all very simple. But within those 15 mixes existed all the fundamental elements of painting.
HUE: the tube colors of orange (burnt sienna actually) and blue (ultramarine blue).
CHROMA: The mixes between the orange and the blue.
VALUE: The tinting of the tube orange, tube blue, and the 3 mixes in between them.
TEMPERATURE: between the orange and the blue.
With that simple palette on could model form, have a range of neutrals, and have contrasts of hue, value, and temperature.
The breakthrough thought here was this... that THAT is exactly what painting is. It is representing reality via (first drawing), but by modeling form with value... of creating depth with neutrals... of creating interesting with contrasts of value, temperature, hue. And so on. Those are the ESSENTIAL aspects of painting.
It's interesting that HUE, CHROMA, VALUE, and TEMPERATURE are often described as the essential aspects of color... BUT what I have found is that these are ALSO the essential aspects of painting. This last point is not taught very well from my experience, and I think I know what the reason is. The reason is that we presume that the purpose of painting is to match reality. In attempting to match what we see we are drawn so close to the phenomenon that we cannot see it for what it is, i.e., we cannot see it for it's essence. We have not distance from it, and therefore cannot form useful conceptions of it.
The essence of artistic vision is related to value, chroma, temperature, and hue. Because value, chroma, and temperature are all aspects of hue, we can (in a sense) drop hue from the equation. Hue is the least important aspect of color in art, though in our minds it seems the most important. This is not to say that hue doesn't matter, but simply that hue becomes the omitted measure of color, relative to the other aspects of color.
Given this, it is clear how misleading much color theory and painting classes are. These classes put undue emphasis on hue. And this reinforces the mistaken notion that matching the specific hues in reality is the objective of painting. I myself have been totally sidetracked into considering hue as the most important thing. For instance, wondering how many reds could be mixed from a collection of tube reds. I have wondered how many reds could be mixed by combining various combinations of burnt sienna, cadmium red, indian red, iron oxide, etc. I have actually felt guilty that i didn't spend hours mixing up the endless permutations that could be created from them. I thought that the answer must certain lie in that. And the same logic applies to the yellows, and blues, etc.. to all the colors. And once you have mixed 100,000 variations on all those colors, you can turn around and start combining the reds with the yellows, and yellows with blues, etc. And this could (and would) go on endlessly, as you attempt to reconstruct every possible combination of every color that can possible be mixed. And then you start in with tinting and shading them, and so on for forever. This endless exercise is a literal analogy with the mindlessness that is inherent in trying to match reality. Such an approach implies that painting is simply the matching of a infinite spectrum of colors.
It is the reality trap. Thinking you have to match natures hues is the reality trap, and allows for no conceptualization or control.
Just like the forms of the face, the hues in the world are infinitely nuanced and continuous, such that no order can be found in them other than what we bring. The means of ordering form is geometric abstraction. The means of ordering color are the abstractions of value, chroma, temperature. To restate the idea from above...
value, chroma, and temperature give specific identity to hues in reality that have none
Once hue is dropped from the equation, simple palettes suddenly seem relevant, and not simply as training exercises. This is another point of failure in art teaching... that limited palettes are presented as training grounds for full palettes, where the superior virtue of the full palette is the range of hues that can be mixed from it. This reinforces the idea that matching nature's colors is the goal of painting.
So, I am really excited by this breakthrough idea. It settles in my mind much of what was confusing.
As a side note, I was thinking that the obsession of with specific hues might be related to impressionism, with it's emphasis on impressions of light (hue) rather than on form and space, which is more an issue of value, chroma, and temperature.
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