I just got a comment here on steemit which inspired me to make this little article about the inner life of abstract art. Below one of my abstract pieces it said, "...like it has a spirit of it's own, shining out of the canvas with life and passion and a yearning need. Perhaps to be seen? (@kirstenstar)
I am always delighted if somebody gets a glimpse of what I am trying to do with my art and finds nice words to describe it. Finding the right words is always tough for me and I really like to get inspired by other peoples thoughts.
I am trying to figure out for a long time now, what 'abstraction' really is...or better what it could be! Up to the first blossoming of abstract art in the beginning of the 20th Century, painting was more or less a mirrored image of the intellect present at the certain time. Only with the human desire for that which stands "behind" the visible, we can follow the path into the abstract.
With artists like Monet and Cezanne came a further aspect to the representation of the Seen, talking about the power of emotion and expression. When Cezanne says: "I bring everything together what is scattered", he in secret announces the end of fragmented worldview, which looks at things as autonomous objects in space. Things get the same valence and melt together to a homogeneous whole.
Kandinsky takes it even further with saying that: "the sense of the object is not in the object anymore, but in the inner sound of the form". We can follow a clear renunciation from reason here. Artists begin to explore the deeper identity of the object by liberating it from its outer form, and make it "sound" from the inside.
Thus abstraction is in fact less the leaving out of information, as furthermore the depiction of further "layers" of reality. Cubism dissolves the organic unity of the objects only to find their content of form.
The abstraction of the object means a coeval renunciation from the squeezing limits of the mind, towards a more intuitive perception of reality. This development had its peak in informal painting, the attempt to snatch a creative order from the chaos, where the painting was the result of quick and spontaneous decisions.
For me the question arises of how far artists are able to penetrate into this abstract, and how much information they are able to fetch from beyond reason. Bringing new aspects of our reality out into daylight, and then reintegrating them into our world of language.
The abstract is so highly complex, that we can only filter parts from it, sufficient to create a system of communication where we get along. But our intuition takes us to the shallowness of the unknown, and it is up to us to reveal what can't be said…yet!
Science has already discovered the some of the marvels of Reality. Now it is time to take all our creativity together and imagine it, to make it our Reality.
