I totally agree with you. Art is so very subjective. I’m like you why does it seem to insult and anger people who don’t do what we do. Im not into still life, portraiture, landscapes, etc. That doesn’t mean I have to say something nasty, because I’m not particularly drawn to it or because it doesn’t evoke any feelings in me. I guess that’s why I do what I do and let others do what they do. I don’t even bother to try an expain it anymore, I just continue to create. It’s what I do it’s what God gave me and I’m not going to change or alter it for anyone. LOL!

http://www.pastelpassions.net

Some good questions.

My basic answer would be: Most people, by their very nature, have always been afraid of what they do not understand, identify with, and/or comprehend. It takes a lot of effort to try and truly understand something “new” to oneself. To try and absorb new ways of looking at life and thus the making of art is not as easy as some might think. It’s much much easier to simply dismiss the actual “merit” of a thing, than to wrap your arms around it and delve into it.

So for whatever the reasons, i would say “fear” above all else.

Hopefully our evolution as open-minded beings of Earth in the stars is still a work in progress.

-G

Some folks think literally. Others have the knack for more flexible thought. One isn’t necessarily better than the other. It just is. I played pool once with an engineer. My approach was to aim and pray. His was to calculate angles and trajectory. I told him to use his imagination. His response: “I have no imagination. I see things for what they are, not for what they might be.”

Having said that, I think that some traditionalist (not all, of course) — in whatever genre — believe that abstract is arbitrary and, excuse me, fast and easy. That it doesn’t require training or skill. It’s just all over the place. Usually, these same folks take a shot at it and find it ain’t all that simple, particularly for a mind that’s geared toward “see it, paint it.”

It’s interesting to look at the early works of the abstract gurus — Rothko, Picasso, so many others — whose early works are more classically oriented. Picasso, particularly, is a true joy to track from his sketches as a child through the various stages of his morphing. It all makes sense.

Oh hell. Here I am in another thread…

I’m not an abstract appreciator… I’m one of those who
doesn’t “get it”… Which is why I never comment on any
of it… I know I don’t understand it because I see nothing
to understand. So I just stay away.

Jo in Georgia

I don’t think abstract is considered scary or intimidating to anyone. You can go into any Shopping Mall poster shop and see The Kiss or Farbstudie Quadrate hanging right there in the “best seller” isle. Abstract has become just another genre like landscape or portraiture. Some don’t “get” it, but I don’t get why someone else might want to hang a stuffed fish on his wall. I’m certainly not scared or intimidated by a stuffed fish.

Sorry, guys, the revolution’s over. It’s quickie-art, not nonrepresentational forms, which offend. Many do not want to accept that “nothing equals something”, because this philosophy requires the opposite also be true.

I think that it really is the fact that abstract art requires a response from the viewer over and above and beyond the obvious “Does it look real…….”.

I struggle to understand abstract art, but am often very affected by some of the art posted here.

To me, it resembles interpreting clouds, wind, water, dreams, nightmares, things you can’t put into words but perhaps can express through art. Abstract art is very subjective both for the artist and the viewer.

Does that make sense to anyone? :confused:

Mary

Untrained person replying here… It seems to me the word “abstract” covers a huge variety of work, first. There are many subcategories, much more so than with portraits, or landscapes, or other, um, subject matter (does abstract art have a subject matter? That’s not a dig, it’s a question — I don’t know!)

I really, really enjoy some abstract art; I am almost totally indifferent to other abstract art, and I dislike (but am not threatened by) other abstract art.

In general, there are whole categories of abstract art to which I am completely indifferent — geometric things (like rectangles of different colors), Pollock-type things (which, to me, appear to be totally chaotic in form), etc.

The categories which contain some works I really enjoy appear, to me, to be regulated (although at a high level of abstraction — sorry!) by rules of composition and color similar to (possibly identical to?) those which are frequently applicable to other, non-abstract works. In particular, I like works with colorful ‘organic’ (rather than geometric) forms, not ‘too many’ unrelated shapes, and that evoke in me an almost tactile response to form/line. In addition I like the shapes to be (or seem) related to one another in space (maybe another reason I don’t like Pollock?).

I dislike art (abstract or not) which is ‘ugly’ — color combinations which set my teeth on edge or are ‘muddy,’ contain ‘too much’ violent ‘movement’ (sorry, don’t know how to express that in proper artist-speak — Guernica has quite a lot of it… is that work abstract, btw? It is representational, certainly, does that disqualify it as an abstract?)

I haven’t met any people who “hate” abstract art, but I have met many who are indifferent to it, and angry that the museum (where I tended to run into or overhear them!) paid a lot of money for these works! Maybe there’s a fairness issue (some artists — maybe meaning the speaker or speaker’s friends? — study for years and work very hard and their work is very accurate, and then these so-called artists…)? You get the drift.

In fact, I myself was similarly annoyed during my first couple years in NYC, one time, when visiting MOMA during one show that featured (no joke) a completely blank, framed, canvas. This was supposedly a reference to the fact that there is always a painting surface, or something equally puerile. When Tom Wolfe wrote his little book about art that ‘wouldn’t exist’ without the words about it, this “piece” came to mind immediately. :rolleyes:

But, again, I do really like other abstract art. Hope this clarifies something for someone….