OK, somebody please explain Abstract "Art" to me, I don't get it.

Yeah the stuff can be pretty and technically complex, but that doesn't make it art any more than wallpaper is. All like it seems to me is that the art critics pull the "meaning" out of their rear ends to show how oh-so "sophisticated" they are and say us lowly plebs will never get it because we don't have their supreme "artistic taste".

Now, pretty Impressionist paintings and nice landscape and nature artwork I like.

But that's probably my Asperger's talking again...

Second, don't attempt to create a deep meaning in the traditional sense. I would recommend that as you view them, if you don't like the form/design/method move on . When you find something appealing, then sit back and reflect on what it is you like about it. But by all means, if you don't like it,that is OK. Its no different than music, don't bother with what you don't like.

where we had to go to the Museum of Fine Arts here in Houston and give our impressions on any one of the pieces listed. I don't recall the artist I chose but it may have been Rothko as it was all or mostly black panels. I liked it and contemplated.

I turned in my assignment with whatever it was I had felt or 'seen' in the artwork only to get my assignment back later redlined and told I was "wrong" in my impression. Excuse me? How can you be "wrong" in your personal impressions of a piece of art? But to her, there was only a strict way of seeing it, i.e., her way and no arguing.

There are quite a few assholes in the field of art, and too many of them teach

I've heard that classical music instructors are the most abusive and demanding of their students, with an especial sadism toward making their female students sink or swim in professional level performance... in part because it's such a frustrating, high prep, low employment field.

What is the saying,the fighting is so vicious because the rewards are so small? That fits classical music instructors, or at least those I encountered during my travails in college.

The only complaints I ever heard was how hard a time they had with music theory. Should hear some interesting stories from them then :)

Are you speaking from personal experience, too?

;)

The prof kept picking on the Football players in the class, asking them probing questions, making snide remarks about how the University was turning into a football team waging a few classes...

He was talking about this "performance art" happening where the "artist" positioned himself under one of those little arch bridges people have in their gardens. The "artist" would then masturbate while people walked over the bridge. He kept it up for five days.

"Now that's endurance." yelled out one of the guys on the football team.

The whole class cracked up and the prof, well he just got nastier.

Burn it! Burn it!

:)

our art mirrors that journey

You aren't responsible for knowing or taking in all those bodies and faces.

sitting together have a meaningful conversation on healthcare. You see it. You can't believe it but one can dream! It seems impossible--you can't imagine it being real but there it is. That is abstract art. It doesn't follow logic but you imagine a world in which it would. It takes you away from the real and brings you into the unreal.

What does a healthcare discussion between an R and a D have to do with artwork? :shrug:

Actually, I can see the Donkey talking, maybe compromising, maybe giving away half the store in the first round of negotiations. But then the elephant just screams "YOU LIE!" and hikes the Appalachian trail.

:rofl:

Excellent simile.

...music is to the radio play. It's interesting to consider that for centuries the visual arts were mostly representational and the aural arts were mostly abstract -- music. But then along comes the 20th-century and we see the rise of both a representational aural form -- radio -- and an abstract visual form.
Think of abstract art as the visual form of music and it starts to make some sense.

Abstract art is about many things, but mostly stuff that can't ever possibly be done in any "realistic" or "photographic" way: anger, amusement, wonderment, excitement. It's about feelings, expressions, and processes.

It can be very difficult for people to wrap their minds around what the abstractionists are trying to do, but it is not impossible. One needs merely to come to it with a very different set of expectations and desires.

I paint mostly mostly abstractly, as is the most of the music I compose of an abstract nature - not so much about a specific melody or harmonic progression, as it is about a process, a feeling, a thought, or a mood. Or an attempt to deconstruct something into its barest forms - think of a nude women: it begins as a nude woman, then becomes a set of curves, then from curves one can make topographical 2-D map, then toa line.... or maybe what's most interesting about the nude woman is the colors, and to hell with the actual outline or shape of the woman... and so on.

Maybe what can help is to think of music - music is totally non-representational, though it is often rife with emotion. The romantics and later (that is, the "classical" music post-1850 or so) were into "program" music and music that was highly emotional (think Wagner, Mahler, later Beethoven, Messiaen, and so on). Unlike the period that it technically referred to as the Classical period (Mozart and early Beethoven), the Romantics and later weren't so much about theme and variations, but about "this is a piece of music about nature" or "this music represents resurrection" and so on.

That's what abstract art is doing - it's the painterly/visual equivalent of aural attempts to talk about the human experience.

I really don't see the emotions and processes in his stuff, to me it looks like chaos, as if a little kid had gotten a hold of the paint and made a disaster, or (to use a music analogy) someone banging piano keys randomly and chaotically. Of course that is unfair to Pollack, it was hard work to make, but meh. :shrug:

The biggest photos you've ever seen of his paintings really don't do them justice. I can't describe exactly what you'll feel or how you'll think when you see one in person, but it'll be entirely different from seeing them in a book, on tv, or online.

I will say that I don't like Pollack's color palette - it's very bland.

However, his abstract art is about the PROCESS of making the art; not so much about the final product.

To get into his, one needs to follow the paint flows, the dots, and whatnot, and just enjoy the process of making it.

One can also - and here we get into the highbrow realm that freepers hate so much - enjoy Pollack from a mathematical perspective - his artwork has a VERY consistent fractal dimension that, in the beginning of his career is something like 2.2 or 2.3, and toward the end becomes like 2.6 or 2.7. So there is a change, but in any given year, there is an amazing consistency of fractal dimension.

So anyone who says it's just random bullshit spattered on a canvas is, seriously, utterly ignorant of Pollack's intentions and methods, and his skill.

The same with Rothko, too - people think "Jesus, it's just bars of color" but it goes far beyond being just bars of color.

I'm happy we have the Rothko Chapel here, too :) Such a tranquil place and perfect for quiet contemplation.

I will admit I don't always know the artists' intentions and for someone like Pollack, I don't feel I need to. I look upon his art as a graphical representation of texture. A good friend of mine (a fine-artist in pottery, herself) never could get into Pollack and actively "hated" his art. When I described how I saw it, it changed her mind. So, all you need sometimes is a different perspective ;)

I find Rauschenberg's collages fascinating for similar reasons :)

but that's the beauty of Art - what I admire as amazing someone else might thing as 'bleh' and vice versa.

years ago I was in the Guggenheim for an Impressionist exhibition, and they had a lot of other stuff up there in the cone to see. Walking past a Pollock, it was interesting but no big deal.

If you know the Guggenheim, you know how you walk up or down the spiral ramp and you can see across,and up and down several levels. I was across from the Pollock and from a hundred feet or so away it came together and all made sense. It was almost hypnotic.

They seem to be that big for a reason.

:thumbsup:

Who he was and what his life was like, the emotions he funneled into his work, either intentionally or not. What drove him to create. :hi:

:thumbsup:

i think you have to appreciate abstract art as a philosopy and non-abstract art more as a aesthetic pleasure. not sure if i make sense here, but that is how i see it.

I'm of the opinion that if a monkey can do it, it's not art.

This is one of my favorite hoaxes. It's not technically abstract art, but you get the idea.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,870835,00.html

(abstract)+(art) = 2(No explanation required)

natural themes by posting side-by-side pictures. It was really amazing. I'd always liked Pollock, but this made me see him in a whole new light.

Link? :hi:

It was one of Pollock's paintings beside a picture of tall grass or bamboo or something, and the similarity was striking. The DUer who posted it used it to teach some sort of art course, so maybe he/she will notice this thread and post a link.

On edit: No pictures, but here's an article discussing Pollock and fractal patterns found in nature. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PAL/is_545_164/ai_n27320085/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=8588873#8589188

Images have been deleted, but her explanation is there.

Personally, I'm a "Surrealist", as far as my paintings go...
I like the Impressionists a great deal, especially the near-sighted ones...

And I have to admit that I have NO IDEA what the Abstractionists
were up to, but I'm pretty certain that at least 90% of it
was complete and utter BULLSHIT...

One of Picasso's closest companions said so,
when asked for a eulogilical comment upon his death.
They asked her to sum up the 50 years she had spent
as his friend, the 5 decades wherein she had been present
while he worked on all the paintings that we all know by name...

Her comment: "Picasso? 10% genius, 90 percent snake-oil salesman."

The artist expressed their own vision in the artwork. But that doesn't mean that you can't also find some personal philosophy in it as well.

It's universal.

Sometimes it evokes a general feeling - maybe not the same for everyone - and that's kinda cool.

It's about Mark Rothko.

It helped me begin to understand what I wasn't seeing in abstract art.

YouTube doesn't exactly allow for faithful reproductions of his work, but all 7 parts are on there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ8AIIAgYpg

he started out as a decent illustrator, with things like sketches of the Paris underground and then moved on to the flowers, the walls, and then the boogies.

More than a common artist, he was working on a philosophy of art and trying to get to the essence of his subjects. Each of his periods was an attempt to strip away more pictorial aspects of a subject and get to the "truth" of its existence.

One can happily argue all night about how well he accomplished this, or even if it made sense to try, but he was serious about it, and worth studying.

And, yes, a lot of others are bullshit artists. The art business, and the doings of gallery owners, is always a source of joyous scandal.

And, someone remind me who that nun who did the PBS art specials was-- her knowledge and ability to teach was incredible. A half hour listening to her and you'll love this stuff.

That and reading Serge Guilbaut's
"How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art"

in galleries.


Have a great day.

mark

:shrug:

:eyes:

If you enjoy nature, I bet you'll also enjoy these articles. :hi:

Discover Magazine: Pollock's Fractals

Fractal Expressionism
Can science be used to further our understanding of art? This question triggers reservations
from both scientists and artists. However, for the abstract paintings produced by Jackson
Pollock in the late 1940s, the answer is a resounding "yes".
PDF file: Fractal Expressionism

Perceptual and Physiological Responses to the Visual Complexity of Pollock’s
Dripped Fractal Patterns
Fractals have experienced considerable success in quantifying the complex structure exhibited
by many natural patterns and have captured the imagination of scientists and artists alike. With
ever widening appeal, they have been referred to both as "fingerprints of nature" and "the new
aesthetics.” Our research has shown that the drip patterns of the American abstract painter
Jackson Pollock are fractal. In this paper, we consider the implications of this discovery. We
first present an overview of our research from the past five years to establish a context for our
current investigations of human response to fractals. We discuss results showing that fractal
images generated by mathematical, natural and human processes possess a shared aesthetic
quality based on visual complexity. In particular, participants in visual perception tests display
a preference for fractals with mid-range fractal dimensions. We also present recent preliminary
work based on skin conductance measurements that indicate that these mid-range fractals also
affect the observer’s physiological condition and discuss future directions based on these
results.
PDF File: Perceptual and Physiological Responses to the Visual Complexity of Pollock's Dripped Fractal Patterns

:hi:

...and speak mind-to-mind, artist to viewer. Ultimately, it trades one set of limits for another. When it works, it's beautiful, but when it doesn't, we get OPs like yours (with which I identify strongly, by the way).

I have no particular talent for puzzling out meaning in abstract art, but I can often enjoy the emotional impact it has.

I don't think you'll get it.

They are better at explaining things than I am.

Just like music or movies or novels.