W/NW, A Genuine Abstract Photograph

[Norma Desmond]

<p>One question I ask myself when approaching abstract art is when something is design and when something is abstract and when something is abstract art. I have nothing to offer as a photographic abstract because I haven't been successful yet at going beyond what I consider just to be design.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>What are you designing?</p>

[michaellinder]

<p> </p><div></div>

[AJHingel]

<p>"Anders, I think approaching the OP question "from the rear" i.e. from history, seems to be making people unhappy."<br>

I have not noticed that unhappiness, Julie, but you referred above "from the navel" so I thought it relevant to mention that the subjects being discussed, and especially Fred's comments have actually been on the agenda since the very start of abstract art some 145 years ago.<br>

<br>

The question of design, is central too. <a href="https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2014/matisse/img/cut-outs/parakeet-and-mermaid.jpg">Matisse paper cuts</a> are they design or art ? Is <a href="https://cdn-s3.touchofmodern.com/products/000/057/199/af22d4ceb957432e21d672791a6ddf19_large.jpg?1382739241">Picasso's pigeon of peace</a> art or design ?<br>

Some would say they look like wall paper design and they certainly have been used for that purpose. Some would say they certainly are art at least because artists of worldwide renòmē made them.<br>

It is indeed very difficult to make an argument on the borderline between art and design. Maybe it is in fact more a question of usage and mostly it depends on what the viewer/user and the "artist" tried to express if anything.<br>

I have made several abstract prints, which have been purchased as abstract art as well as design and in some case without doubt, both. I add an example below, which is genuinely abstract, but not a photography, just to illustrate the design/art question.</p><div></div>

[Julie H]

<p>Anders wrote: "borderline between art and design" ...</p>

<p>???</p>

<p>You feel that there is undesigned art?</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>I normally don't "feel" such things, Julie, but I tried to contribute to Fred's questionings: <br>

"I ask myself when approaching abstract art is when something is design and when something is abstract and when something is abstract art " (Fred)</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>...I always have a suspicion that people who consciously "do" abstract are simply imitating what they've seen other people claim to be abstract. In other words, they're excited because they think they're doing a good imitation, not because of what it is that they're seeing. <strong>"It looks just like [some famous abstract] so it must be really good!" without any idea of what made that [famous abstract] either abstract or good.</strong></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Julie, is that a general observation of artists overall who create and describe their abstracts or is that specific to what you're seeing in this thread? Where have you seen those that attempt to make abstracts say their work looks like [some famous abstract]?<strong><br /></strong></p>

<p>I'm curious to know what makes an abstract good according to [famous abstracts].</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Tim,</p>

<p>I have a book (a good book) about design called <em>Design: The Invention of Desire</em>. Design starts with some object (clothing, a product, or simply bits of pieces of a picture) and then, with that fixed starting content, tries to invent desire. It wants to generate desire; to make you want it. The starting stuff is fixed; the desire is <em>then</em> found; contrived out of the parts, or added on.</p>

<p>Abstract art does the opposite. It <em>starts</em> with desire. It starts with a feeling or an idea — that is its fixed "content" — and tries to invent the colors or forms, the design that in some sense <em>is</em> that desire. Desire is not something found "after" or something invented from what you already have. It is inseparable, it <em>is</em> what the art is.</p>

<p>If I someone is making abstract pictures, I'd expect it to be in a consistently felt style, not in six or a dozen or more abstract styles. To my eye, multiple and inconsistent styles look to me like add-on, an invention to generate desire, not something that was felt and <em>is</em> the picture.</p>

<p>You ask: "I'm curious to know what makes an abstract good according to [famous abstracts]." Think of a cockatoo that speaks English. It speaks very good English; it even does my voice <em>and</em> yours.</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>Julie, it seems to me, that you have a very personal appreciation of artistic expressions and what you call "styles", in most of which I cannot find myself. That can't bother you and shouldn't either. We are all different.<br>

<br>

It does however tell me, that you should maybe not write in absolute terms, like: "Abstract art does..." one or the other things. You expect also to find a "consistently felt style" and not to find: six or dozen or more abstract styles". Why ? Have you never bothered to follow the varied styles of artist throughout there lives. Few artists stick stubbornly to one style, they mostly try different styles as they grow as artists and search new ground. Other change styles almost daily like musicians play different instruments. Some paint in the morning, draw during lunch and make sculptures the rest of the day - all in different styles.<br>

<br>

However, what bothers me most is, that you seem to believe, that the only valid motor behind creative activities is "desire". Desire to succeed, desire to find, desire for a deeper understand of life, I can connect to, but "desire" in general tells me less ? Why not just old-fashion "inspiration".<br>

<br>

Many of my abstract paintings start in the morning with a deeply felt attraction to a movement (of my hand and the paint brush), a texture (of paint, medium and canvas), a form or a color. Many of my abstract/surrealistic photo/images start with a ambition of showing the "real" world beyond the seen (in forests and nature, in bigger cities, in portraits) or a social/political abstract comment. The concept of desire is too vague for me, unless it is just meaningless without being related to something more.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Anders, I think Julie as simple and succinct as possible is using the term <em>design </em>as a comparison in helping to explain what makes abstracts different according to their visual language that can be expressed with various "accents" she refers to as "styles". Abstracts can speak with their own visual language but in an accent that fits or more effectively expresses the idea, emotion or desire.</p>

<p>What makes a bad abstract is similar to someone speaking in Mandarin Chinese with authority but with an Italian accent which creates awkwardness and interruption in communicating effectively. It just comes across clunky and disingenuous. </p>

<p>The design aspect of expression uses recognizable objects to create desire. The ad industry has been very successful at this. Abstracts show desire at first sight before any relationship to an actual object is discerned.</p>

<p>It's kind of like seeing something beautifully colorful, organic and foreign catch your eye walking on the beach. You know you're in an environment for that to happen. You don't know what it is but its mystery creates desire at first sight (abstract).</p>

<p>You walk up to it and find it's someone's expensive ornately designed necklace with many colorful shiny ornaments and now the desire turns to asking what it's worth. (design) A complete turnaround from a spiritual sense.</p>

<p>Julie's cockatoo analogy got by me. No clue how that defines a good abstract. </p>

[Julie H]

<p>Tim, re the cockatoo, it was an elaboration on my previous:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"It looks just like [some famous abstract] so it must be really good!" without any idea of what made that [famous abstract] either abstract or good.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I thought that was what your question was about. We're talking past each other ...</p>

<p> </p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>Think of a cockatoo that speaks English. It speaks very good English; it even does my voice <em>and</em> yours.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I don't see us talking past each other at all, Julie. The first part of your design/desire outline made perfect sense which I sort of attempted to confirm in an answer back with my analogy of complex languages spoken with an inappropriate accent to your reference to "style", a word that seemed to not land well with Anders.</p>

<p>Your use of a language analogy in the quote above using an exotic talking bird doesn't give much practical detail on how to assess what makes a good abstract. Your explanation is hard for me to connect to visual language constructs because you use a broad and vague word as "good" to describe the bird's English and then jump to what all talking birds do "good" which is mimicry or copying which doesn't connect well with making an original piece of artwork such as an abstract.</p>

<p>But thanks for the Design vs Desire explanation. That was very helpful in understanding and distinguishing what is and isn't an abstract.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Tim, your reading of what I wrote about desire isn't mine, but yours is interesting to me. Gives me something to think about.</p>

<p>******************</p>

<p>The urge to abstraction is ancient:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The storm, sweeping across the plains and deeply affecting the men of early Mesopotamia, became for them not only the great war-god who imposed the lawful will of heaven but also the wild, unpredictable source of all violence and destruction, whether by wind, rain or attacking invaders.</p>

<p>[<em>line break added</em>] The Mesopotamians' experience of storms was a complex process reaching from the physical level of the outside world and their bodies to the successive inner levels of sensation, emotion and thought, ordering their relations with the nature around them and providing them with a framework for explaining other events. — <em>Gyorgy Kepes</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Think of the abstracts in this thread as visions of/from little gods: the god of Pyrex, the god of soap bubbles, the god of a little breeze or of wavelets. Sandford's seems like a little demon. :)</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I think about there being derived, dependent, found, passive, contained, pre-made designs and patterns in very many places. Then I think there are abstracts and abstractions which, when creative, independent, liberated, and/or proactive have artistic significance.</p>

<p>The primitivism or naive nature of Picasso's Dove of Peace is where I look for the art in it.</p>

<p>The self referential process orientation of Jackson Pollock's large "splattered" canvases is where they become more than design for me.</p>

<p>The constructedness of Matisse's cutouts, the theory within Mondrian's work, the independence and suggestiveness of Kandinsky.</p>

<p><a href="/photo/18319001&size=lg">HERE'S</a> a photo I came across recently that is not a "pure" abstract but has some of the qualities of abstraction that I think take it beyond design to a deeper place. This is not a photo <em>of</em> a found, self-contained design. This is a photo that sees/frames various parts in such a way as to form abstract relationships and juxtapositions that create a geometry, or as I said in my comment on it, seem to yield almost actual physical interlocking pieces of a puzzle that don't quite yet fit neatly together.</p>

 

[mary_hamdan]

<p>I am preparing to launch my 1st PL product...finally yay! Anyone have any good recommendations for product photography?</p>

[sjmurray]

<p>I just noticed this new forum. I'm not sure whether I have any true abstract photographs, but a lot of my nature images do depend a lot on geometry, lines, forms, etc. Maybe it is "abstract." I'll let you guys inform me. Here's a recent example.</p><div></div>

[sjmurray]

<p>Or, a shot like this.</p><div></div>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Steve, I like the striking earth tone hues in both of those images but I don't see them as abstracts. I see pictures of trees that appear to have been composed within the camera's frame as snapshots. Cropping a small portion of both could make it look abstract.</p>

<p>Julie H. who's a frequent contributor here gives a pretty good and simple enough to understand definition of an abstract photo. I'll let her speak for herself. </p>

<p>My definition for an abstract photo is that the first thing I see doesn't immediately tell me it's a photo but some design based distortion or unique POV on reality either by cropping, getting very close to the subject, composing according to how forms, lines and shapes relate to each other and fit and flow within the frame. </p>

<p>For example rock formations that fill the frame as one solid and even pattern of rock texture is considered an abstract photo of nature. It can both be perceived as a kind of 2D wallpaper like congruous pattern while at the same time with a second look appear as an actual capture of a 3D scene which now turns it into something more than a random nature photo.</p>

 

[Julie H]

<p>.</p><div></div>

[Julie H]

<p>For Laura and her (wine?) glass, you may enjoy <a href="http://www.brooklynrail.org/article_image/image/12557/ar-lookatthings-web1-large.jpg">this comic</a> from Ad Reinhardt.</p>

<p>The last bit of that comic, which is hard to see (lower right corner) is <a href="http://66.media.tumblr.com/c647325661feecc0783bec3923f98f3e/tumblr_mu62jmETJy1qeynhvo1_1280.jpg">this</a>.</p>

 

[Laura Weishaupt]

<p>Cute, and enjoyable this morning with coffee. Thanks.</p>

<p> </p>

[AJHingel]

<p>I see that we are back at the initial discussion about what abstract art or abstract photography is supposed to mean.<br>

If it all was so simple as Julie's quote: "<strong><em>abstract art, see nonfigurative art</em></strong>" seems to indicate it would all be very simple. And indeed we have a long tradition within art movements the last 100 years which completely respect such a definition : </p>

<p ><em>Lyric abstractionism</em> (Kandinsky), <em>Orphisme</em> (Delaunay), <em>Suprematisme</em> (Malévitch); <em>Neo-plasticisme</em> (Mondrian), <em>Cinétique art</em> (Vasarely), <em>Minimal art</em> (Newman, Stella), <em>Informal art</em> (Soulages), <em>Action painting</em> (Pollock) which all concentrate on contrast between colours, retime, free flowing forms, lines and where no recognisable elements from "reality" are present. </p>

<p > <br>

The problems arise when "non-figurative" is put under the looking-glass.<br>

<br>

Other definitions of "abstract art" would refer to <strong><em>un art which rejects connections to reality" </em> </strong>or art" which <em><strong >liberates itself from the visual reality.</strong></em><br>

<em><strong > </strong></em><br>

This type of understand of what abstract art can be and maybe especially what "abstract photography" can be, opens for work, which does not copy reality, which transform reality into something else and more. Therefore, going back to the two photos of Steve above of what all of us see as photos of trees can have abstract qualities for those who mainly see forms, lines, forms colours and light and not only trees. Such images "liberates themselves from the visual reality and creates some more and different and thereby something "abstract".</p>

<p><strong> </strong><br>

<strong> </strong></p>

[Julie H]

<p><a href="https://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/drivethru_brain.jpg">This figure is being abstracted</a>.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>Therefore, going back to the two photos of Steve above of what all of us see as photos of trees <strong>can have abstract qualities for those who mainly see forms, lines, forms colours and light and not only trees.</strong> Such images "liberates themselves from the visual reality and creates some more and different and thereby something "abstract".</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Then those who mainly see forms, lines and forms of color and light in similar images as Steve posted must have eye problems. Or they're rationalizing on a ridiculous level or taking psychotropic drugs. </p>

<p>I really don't understand your point, Anders. No one who lives in reality is going to view Steve's tree images as abstract photos. What are you talking about?</p>

[sjmurray]

<p>Quoting Julie earlier in the thread:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"Note that as long as the idea or feeling is gotten, it doesn't matter that, on looking closer you can tell what objects are in the picture. As long as what the stuff is isn't integral to or what is conveying the idea or feeling; rather it's the colors and shapes apart from or even in spite of what they are. It is what it does." </p>

</blockquote>

<p>In that regard, in my photos posted above I do get a feeling of something that is a result of the "colors and shapes apart from or even in spite of what they are." For instance, one person referred to the tree photo this way: "This isn't so much a grove of trees as a herd," indicating a feeling of mass movement and something other than simply trees. In that sense, I would say there is an element of abstractness in these photos. I understand this is quite a disputed issue though. <br>

To answer Tim, I actually do "mainly see forms, lines and forms of color" in such images all the time. That's what drives my photography. Maybe different people do see things differently. That's why we take different types of photos. I also think perhaps "abstractness" is on a spectrum, so that there is a range of "abstractness," from photos where we don't even know what it is we are looking at, but just a pattern, to my tree photo above, where to me a pattern arises out of the trees which is not related to trees but is a result of the shadows and lines and repetition. </p>