There exists a general confusion among viewers of paintings. When a clear, objective ‘subject’ or recognizable object is not apparent, the term ‘abstract’ is liberally applied. In many of those cases, the ‘subject’ may be the form itself. Metaphorically, that form may lead us to infer feelings, thoughts, substantive content or make other associations. Human beings, after all, innately seek meaning – and will fabricate it if they cannot discern it.
At times, we may be directed towards a meaning by the title of the piece. That may not always be the case and I have known painters to intentionally mislead their audiences by assigning random or nonsensical titles. If there is no useful title, we’re left to simply respond to the form. It’s all we have. It is debatable whether a work can be truly non-representational or non-objective even though such labels may be applied.
In painting, to abstract literally means to draw (in the sense of pull) from. The painter, when confronted with an object or scene, selects (draws from) the object or scene those features (perhaps only shape or color) that will best capture the idea, thought, feeling, sensation, or association that’s desired. Abstraction is primarily a subtractive or reductive process required whenever our senses are overwhelmed by detail or complexity. In that sense, all art is abstract. The advantage of abstraction to the viewer is that it permits the insertion of personal perception into the gaps provided by all the omitted detail.
It requires something of us – a tactile or vicarious participation – reciprocity. Rather than delivering meaning wholesale, which makes only a very small claim on our interest, abstraction encourages involvement and participation by the viewer in order to construct meaning. In Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964), Marshall McLuhan classifies media as being either cool or hot, based upon the degree of required audience participation. Setting aside the temperature references, the point is that the various means of human communication demand different levels of involvement (reciprocity). In our present technological culture, the value of personal touch has been diminished through the proliferation of media that demand little or nothing from us.
Abstraction may be a requirement of our own mortal insufficiency. We are, in a sense, abstractions of what we were intended to be. And we are conscious of our abstract existence every moment of our lives. We live with a pervasive sense that there is much that is missing. Abstraction, itself, is a condition, not a flaw – or it might be said that it’s a condition that has resulted from a flaw. Our brokenness has limited us, has reduced us to mortal abstractions of what might have been. We advance that abstraction. We edit our appearances to produce a more acceptable version of ourselves that we believe to be more suitable to others. Deceit and delusion are also forms of abstraction.
Perhaps this persistent reduction through abstraction is needed to provide an incentive for reaching out beyond ourselves to fill the gaps left by our brokenness. Abstraction is not accidental. It is the result of a choice. Perhaps the abstraction of our lives is the result of the ‘fog’ in which we exist – or perhaps it is the cause…