# Abstract?



## dickhutchings

Took a break from my sailboat painting and chilled with this.


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## dickhutchings

Yeah, 12 views and nobody knows quite what to say about it. I feel your pain.:devil:


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## just

Is that what it represents, my pain? I know that you like for us to speak frankly, so let me be frank. Abstract is easy. Good abstract is difficult. It captures an essence of a subject. It leaves the viewers with emotions. This does not move me. What is the subject.


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## dickhutchings

Thanks Just. That's exactly why I put the question mark.

I have some ideas to make this a more emotional abstract. I see things in it that others probably don't. Like an ink blot.


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## bbbaldie

I gave it a like. Abstract either works for me, or not. Yours does. I've seen a Pollock at Crystal Bridges, that one did not.


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## Mel_Robertson

dickhutchings said:


> I see things in it that others probably don't. Like an ink blot.


yeah I agree with the ink blot statement.... I see a woman standing in the rain


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## dickhutchings

I like what you did with the colors. Not so in your face.

My wife sees a woman holding a baby. I don't see it. I see a man with a big bushy beard with a staff in his left hand. He's standing on some sort of strange boat.


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## TerryCurley

I like the original colors. I love bright and colorful.


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## kpnuts

I see flowers on fire rushing to ground, I think your right you could put it in the flowers exercise, I like it a lot, there is a lot of movement in it.


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## SuddenLife

I see fire, lots of fire. But then again, I am a simple person. It looks like a wild ride from start to finish, though.


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## leighann

I'll give the hubby's view first, since it's a little more colorful :biggrin:

He sees someone in a hooded purple cloak, standing in a cave, facing a wolf dolphin. (Spirit animal maybe?)

I saw a person facing strong winds, with a shadow on the right


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## dickhutchings

Just getting back to my computer after visiting with my daughter over the weekend. Lots of interesting replies to this so I think it was some what of a success so I'm going to sign it. Next painting, spring flower scene.


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## Innocence

I see a sunset with clouds, and a woman in a dress on a dragon with with a crystal ball in her hands...

Im different.


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## dickhutchings

Very cool! I love how everyone sees something different.


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## M Winther

Abstract painting is the way to go! But it's not even necessary to paint colourful abstracts. Kazimir Malevich's "Black Square" (1915) is the most famous abstract painting in the world. It is invaluable. Because of its bad condition, they won't move it to exhibitions outside Russia. Later, he developed it even further, and painted "Suprematist Composition: White on White", 1918. /Mats









https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...79.5_x_79.5_cm,_Tretyakov_Gallery,_Moscow.jpg









http://blog.imagebrief.com/white-white-monochrome-trend/


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## kpnuts

See now I'm sorry (and I may well get shot down for this, but it's just my opinion) but how is a black square or a white square (even on the same canvas)art, i mean what's to stop a famous artist just doing a straight line and calling that art, or maybe a single dab of paint on a canvas and calling that art, sorry just don't get it.


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## M Winther

kpnuts said:


> See now I'm sorry (and I may well get shot down for this, but it's just my opinion) but how is a black square or a white square (even on the same canvas)art, i mean what's to stop a famous artist just doing a straight line and calling that art, or maybe a single dab of paint on a canvas and calling that art, sorry just don't get it.


No, you won't get shot down, because it is a plausible argument. But, in my view, these paintings of Malevich are like holy icons that endow the environment with spiritual signification. The spiritual is the invisible, and Malevich paints the invisible, in a sense. According to Malevich, the background white in his Suprematist paintings, signifies eternity, the transcendental realm, into which his abstract forms dissolve. 

Thus, it is all about overcoming our serfdom under the creatural, which leads to spiritual freedom and independence. This has always been the ideal of spiritual disciplines, such as Neoplatonism, Christian mysticism, etc. Malevich said: "Things have disappeared like smoke; to gain the new artistic culture, art approaches creation as an end in itself and domination over the forms of nature."

Despite this, the mimetic view of art has retained its grip on artists and amateurs alike. It means that art comes from the outside, and we simply copy it. Already Plato was very critical of this stance. According to Plato, pure Beauty is non-representational, because it is a transcendental Form (cf. 'Plato's Aesthetics', Stanford Encyc., here).

In my view, we must continue in the footsteps of Expressionists and Suprematists, and not backpedal to a mimetic art form. Impressionism needn't be practiced as such, however. Yet, the way painting is often taught today is to use Impressionist means to copy correctly, so that one gets the right _impression_. But, really, it is all about getting the right _expression_. 

This doesn't mean that I cannot appreciate fine Impressionist art. After all, I am not an expressionism fundamentalist. But how can one ever reach the level of a Monet or a Sisley?

Mats


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## M Winther

The point is that you could certainly do "a straight line" or maybe "a single dab of paint" and call that art. It won't be hung in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but you have created a spiritual icon, that is, something which carries spiritual meaning, and which will impact the environment in which it hangs. /Mats


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## Susan Mulno

kpnuts said:


> See now I'm sorry (and I may well get shot down for this, but it's just my opinion) but how is a black square or a white square (even on the same canvas)art, i mean what's to stop a famous artist just doing a straight line and calling that art, or maybe a single dab of paint on a canvas and calling that art, sorry just don't get it.


I am with you Ken.

One can suggest "spirituality" or "space" or anything else into a piece that they like, but at the end of the day, "A rose by any other name is still a rose".


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## dickhutchings

Good one Susan.


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## dickhutchings

M Winther said:


> The point is that you could certainly do "a straight line" or maybe "a single dab of paint" and call that art. It won't be hung in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but you have created a spiritual icon, that is, something which carries spiritual meaning, and which will impact the environment in which it hangs. /Mats


First off, welcome to our forum.

Seems you have to be schooled to appreciate those squares as art. If I have a name and a good story to go along with my dab of paint then it belongs hanging right beside those squares. My painting came with neither but inspired quite a few different impressions of what it was from folks on this forum and others. I think mine is far more interesting.:biggrin:


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## M Winther

Thanks, Dick. No, you're wrong! You should develop your spiritual feeling, your sense of awe before the artwork, which is similar to the feeling that the orthodox Christian has for the religious icon. To me, there is nothing as laden with spiritual meaning as modern art. The other day I visited The Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm and admired this Picasso, "Guitar player", 1916. I think it's remarkably powerful. /Mats









http://www.modernamuseet.se/malmo/s...900-1950/kubismen-och-den-mekaniska-baletten/


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## dickhutchings

I've been known to be wrong. You haven't convinced me. I'll have to take some time to consider it.


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## SuddenLife

In all honesty, I really dislike the 'you're wrong, because you don't understand phenomenon X the way I do' argument when it's about art, because of the extreme subjective nature of all this and it's potential of coming across as very condescending, though I do not think you intend to come across as such at all, it's more a general statement. What you feel or do not feel upon viewing art isn't wrong or right. 

The thing is, when I look at that painting you just posted, I see blocks of color and something vaguely reminiscent of a stringed instrument. Do I think it's bad? Certainly not. This man played a big role in art's history and I very much respect the bloke for that. But for me it wouldn't be much without it's context, and I honestly do not believe that makes either one of us wrong or right. If something like just a white square managed to create an outrage among art critics, I like it. Not because I am one bit impressed by that square, but because it's always fun when art manages to annoy some people. But that context for me is critical. 
You have your spiritual connection and preference of abstract arts over realistic arts, and that's cool. I am absolutely not judging that. But some others here don't, myself included. Doesn't necessarily make it wrong. 
I personally prefer realism, but in a way that allows me to use the knowledge I gain studying it to create new things. Pretty much what you'd expect from a concept artist, I suppose. And in all honesty; I don't really care much for spirituality. Been there, tried that. It's not for me.

That isn't to say that I dislike modern art as a whole, there's definitely pieces that I loved (if it interests you, I can see if I still have pictures of one that really got to me on my external harddrive, though I can't guarantee anything as I took them five years ago), but overall? No, they're certainly not the summum of art to me. 
I need to see technical skill, because I like the sort of painting, digital or traditional, that makes me think 'damn, I want to be at that level'. I'm not really looking for spiritual feelings; I want to be pushed to my artistic limits and then further. 

Don't get me wrong, though, there is certainly nothing wrong with trying to encourage people to look at a type of art in a different light, but when it gets treated a little bit too much like an irrefutable truth, it can get a little icky.


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## kpnuts

I like impressionistic art, i like dicks painting (especially as it is not titled something stupid like man in rain or fire from the sky) the viewer is left to decide for themselves, what I hate is when someone paints a yellow square and calls it homage to the square, that in my mind is a lazy artist who's made a name for himself and now thinks he can churn out a ten minuet painting and give it some existential name and charge 100 quid for it, I like a lot of Henry moore's stuff but would like it a whole lot more without some of the titles I love monet and van gough I also love William Russell Flint or Archibald Thorbourn I have a very eclectic taste in art, i love escher I just hate lazy art.
Sorry if that opinion upsets anyone but it is just my humble opinion, I do realise I'm no van gough or William Russell Flint, even in some weird parallel universe I would only be fit to Polish their boots, but I do feel strongly about this. Again just my humble opinion.


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## Pguimaraes74

I like the bold color, and I definitely see a figure in there. Abstract is not as easy to emote one's inner moods as one may think. Keep it up!


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## SylviaCSosnovskaFineArt

Yeah to me also the first image was like a " burning desire"


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