Do you ever look at a painting or sculpture and declare,
"My five year old can do that!" Or "What is it supposed to be?"
Art is a truly personal experience. At its best it is meant to provoke thought
and discussion and sometimes controversy. Most art, which endures today, was
ahead of its time. From an historical perspective the natural progression toward
abstract art was a gradual accomplishment.
As a tribute to the much-
revered human form,
ancient Western civilizations created art in their ideal likeness. In the middle-ages pagan images were forbidden, therefore, human likenesses
were abstracted to the simplest shapes. During the
Renaissance there was a spirit of competition even though an artist's
subject matter was limited to that which was required by their patrons.
When
the camera was invented the artist was free to challenge what art meant and
to ponder the logical step forward. The answer was art for its own sake. Every
element: line, space, color, shape, etc. which has always made a work of art,
a work of art, now becomes the subject.
Wassily Kandinsky is arguably credited with the first purely abstract
images. Would
Jackson Pollock have been able to drip paint on his canvases without
these discoveries? Art is reactionary and nothing can be created in a vacuum.
An artist's own personal development is a progressive one.
Jackson Pollock studied
with
Thomas Hart Benton and the latter's regionalist works influenced
Pollock tremendously in the beginning of his career. He was soon to discover
that the New York art world was rapidly changing and he became a leader in those
discoveries. We experience images and objects with virtually more than one of
our senses simultaneously. First, accept it as an object and then begin to wonder
about it, criticize and even, finally, reject it. When we view anything, a house
a car or a work of art we bring our experiences into the fold. This is a good
thing. Use that to enhance your experience of the object in front of you. Be
aware of what you are thinking and feeling. Most importantly look at many different
styles and periods. The subtitle of the painting Whistler's Mother is Composition in Black and White. The portrait is actually secondary to the primary
abstract study.
Today even the formal elements of art are challenged in the most controversial
art ever created. Artists continue to investigate new ways of seeing the world
and of expressing their views. Some view these pieces as a cop out for so called
artists who can't draw, paint or sculpt in the conventional methods. Others
respond to the challenge before them. Is it art? To ponder the question is,
itself, part of the experience.
