The Validity of Abstraction...
There is something ridiculous, a vestige from yesteryear that has hung on our minds like an albatross for decades now, and it closes our minds in a very sinister way.
It's the school of thought that art is supposed to have some sort of purpose, or have some sort of obvious aesthetic quality, or some sort of explicit feeling.
That's simply not true.
I'm a firm believer in ''l'art pour l'art,'' or "art for art's sake."
We've come a long way in what we consider and accept as viable in media. Our society readily watches whatever crap comes on the TV; in fact, we embrace it. (For example, I watch "The Real World: Austin" devoutly, despite the fact that it is devoid of any content whatsoever.) We watch and are entertained by bad movies, pulp fiction, and lower-quality music. And that's fine.
And, to be fair, we readily embrace good and ground-breaking genres of film, music, and literature, and have created a diverse spectrum of thought with regard to these genres.
But we stop short at art.
Most people simply don't like abstract art. Perhaps this is borrowed from our elders, or perhaps we've come up with this idea by ourselves, but we simply think the abstract is easily achievable and a waste of time. The artists simply are pulling wool over our eyes.
Now I bought into this line of thinking for a long while, and subscribed only to the line of thought that everything before and including Picasso was art, and everything after was not really valid.
I didn't understand. I didn't get it.
I had never walked into a room surrounded by Mondrian and Pollack. When I looked at their paintings in books, I didn't see any people, and it wasn't pastoral, so I disregarded their work. I was ignorant; I didn't know what it was like to walk into a quiet room where all you saw was an arrangement of color on a canvas.
Now I know.
There's a quiet depth to abstract art. You stand there and immerse yourself in it and pretty soon you're observing the subtleties of the work. And you assign the details of the work to something personal in your life, all the meantime understanding that others have applied the work to something personal in their lives. You aren't confined by specific images; in fact, the blurring of specifics creates an intrinsic freedom for your imagination. You can experience the art in any way you want. You can assign whatever values you want to the art. It can become what you want it to be. It relaxes you; it challenges you; it sparks your mind. It requires patience and introspection, but nevertheless energizes you.
I can't get that feeling from Monet, Renoir, Degas, David, Michelangelo, Giotto, Rembrandt, Reubens, or any of the classicists. I appreciate their talent, but it's hard for me to feel anything other than respect and admiration for their particular, explicit talent.
When there are no definitions of what a piece of art is supposed to convey, I feel more at peace with the idea of experiencing it.
I can't create abstract art; my mind is too limited to conventions. So I appreciate the work of those whose minds aren't. I'll defend their ability to create abstract art unabashedly; after all, they give me a rare chance to dispose of my conventions, which is something we could all stand to do a little more of.
It's the school of thought that art is supposed to have some sort of purpose, or have some sort of obvious aesthetic quality, or some sort of explicit feeling.
That's simply not true.
I'm a firm believer in ''l'art pour l'art,'' or "art for art's sake."
We've come a long way in what we consider and accept as viable in media. Our society readily watches whatever crap comes on the TV; in fact, we embrace it. (For example, I watch "The Real World: Austin" devoutly, despite the fact that it is devoid of any content whatsoever.) We watch and are entertained by bad movies, pulp fiction, and lower-quality music. And that's fine.
And, to be fair, we readily embrace good and ground-breaking genres of film, music, and literature, and have created a diverse spectrum of thought with regard to these genres.
But we stop short at art.
Most people simply don't like abstract art. Perhaps this is borrowed from our elders, or perhaps we've come up with this idea by ourselves, but we simply think the abstract is easily achievable and a waste of time. The artists simply are pulling wool over our eyes.
Now I bought into this line of thinking for a long while, and subscribed only to the line of thought that everything before and including Picasso was art, and everything after was not really valid.
I didn't understand. I didn't get it.
I had never walked into a room surrounded by Mondrian and Pollack. When I looked at their paintings in books, I didn't see any people, and it wasn't pastoral, so I disregarded their work. I was ignorant; I didn't know what it was like to walk into a quiet room where all you saw was an arrangement of color on a canvas.
Now I know.
There's a quiet depth to abstract art. You stand there and immerse yourself in it and pretty soon you're observing the subtleties of the work. And you assign the details of the work to something personal in your life, all the meantime understanding that others have applied the work to something personal in their lives. You aren't confined by specific images; in fact, the blurring of specifics creates an intrinsic freedom for your imagination. You can experience the art in any way you want. You can assign whatever values you want to the art. It can become what you want it to be. It relaxes you; it challenges you; it sparks your mind. It requires patience and introspection, but nevertheless energizes you.
I can't get that feeling from Monet, Renoir, Degas, David, Michelangelo, Giotto, Rembrandt, Reubens, or any of the classicists. I appreciate their talent, but it's hard for me to feel anything other than respect and admiration for their particular, explicit talent.
When there are no definitions of what a piece of art is supposed to convey, I feel more at peace with the idea of experiencing it.
I can't create abstract art; my mind is too limited to conventions. So I appreciate the work of those whose minds aren't. I'll defend their ability to create abstract art unabashedly; after all, they give me a rare chance to dispose of my conventions, which is something we could all stand to do a little more of.
posted by mike at 8:46 PM
6 Comments:
As expected, here's a comment from me!
If abstract art's purpose is to be general enough that anyone can apply it to themselves then...
Abstract art is not "l'art pour l'art". Rather it is "l'art pour reflection" (pardon my lack of French...).
But, ultimately, I think there must be SOME external purpose to art, whether it be aesthetics (which is what I think is proper for art), or for reflection, or even for sending a message. Ultimately, "l'art pour l'art" doesn't work because, well, art is not intrinsically valuable. Art (like almost every non-living thing) recieves its value from its usefulness. Even if that use is simply "looking nice" or "encouraging people to reflect". Either way, you've still not shown "l'art pour l'art", even if you have shown a potential use for abstract art...
Sorry. :-)
Yeah, I had a feeling when I was writing this that I diverged in the middle of the thing to show something else. Unfortunately, I didn't want to change this because I only am willing to put a small amount of effort into the non-sports section of this blog.
Your criticism is fair enough. I really meant to talk about the validity of abstraction, but I went off onto something else. Classic essay mistake... ah well... I would try again, but instead, look forward to a post on bad baseball transactions coming soon.
Although, according to these guys, I have it wrong, mainly 'cause we're working from the wrong set of assumptions. Apparently I didn't actually read what "art for art's sake" meant.
Freer Gallery: "Art for Art's Sake rejects the idea that the success of an art object can be measured by its accuracy as a representation or the effectiveness with which it tells a story or suggests a moral. Instead, it implies that an art object is best understood as an autonomous creation to be valued only for the success with which it organizes color and line into a formally satisfying and therefore beautiful whole."
Yeah, so art doesn't (according to the art gallery) have to have a moral purpose (which is what I was arguing) but is aesthetic (which was apparently imbedded in my argument).
So, I'll say that art must be aesthetic, then, but that aestheticism is completely subjective. I still can't buy into this 'natural order, traditional' bit, mainly because our traditions aren't static.
First of all, I think Art should be defined more generally. Instead of just paintings & sculptures it should also encompass music, film, poetry, etc. Abstraction is a valid concept in all these areas.
Art (big A) is intrisically valuable; it is the definition of culture. What I consider to be abstract art can be aesthetically pleasing. Aesthetics is subjective and not quantifiable. Abstract art is art which does not have an obvious purpose/message. To defend abstract art you must simply enjoy it, and then it becomes part of the culture, and then it has meaning.
Though this is an old enough post that its comments probably won't be read, here goes...
Interesting defn. of "Art for Art's Sake". If, in fact, art for art's sake is really just about creating something beautiful, then, sure it's okay. I just have a hard time believing that that is that is a commonsensical meaning for the phrase. One would think that a better phrase would be "Art for Beauty's Sake" or "Aesthetic's Sake" or something like that. And, based on some of the art I've seen, art and beauty or aesthetics are not equivalent. (Thinking "statue of Virgin Mary made of feces" here.)
Actually, I've thought a decent amount about the whole "subjective aesthetics" v. "natural order aesthetics" thing. Not to say that I'm right on it, of course, haha. And, actually, I've "converted" on this issue. From subjectivism to natural order.
See, the problem with subjectivism is that it makes whether art is successful or unsuccessful entirely unknowable. So, ultimately, every artist's work (that is, if the work is striving to be beautiful) is entirely in vain, because, ultimately you can't say "That art is beautiful." Because, that is never a true statement. On the other hand, neither is "That art is not beautiful." Rather, the phrase "to me" (or some equivalent) must be added to the statement for it to have a chance of being true. And, ultimately, since aesthetics is subjective, for the artist to have a chance of being "successful", they must first define exactly what audience they are trying to please, then they have to guess at what aspects would make the art beautiful to that audience. A headache of a process. Not to mention that, once the target audience is dead, any value in the art to other audiences is just the result of chance, and can't be said to be the artist being "successful" in any way. The original audience determined that already.
But, if we believe that there are great, "timeless" works (as I believe many in the art community, broadly defined, do), then that suggests that there is a "timeless" standard of aesthetics. Or, one might say, an aesthetics standard that is part of the unchanging "nature of things". ;-)
If we do believe in timeless works, and therefore a timeless standard, then there is a chance for the artist to strive for more than pure "marketability" (which is really what subjective aesthetics comes down to). Rather, the artist can take part in the continuing search for Beauty (with a capital B). To me, this feels like a much higher calling.
But, if you want to deprive artists of that calling, then, well, I suppose that's your right. You're more than free to relegate them to the level of entertainers. But, I think that many artists don't really think of themselves that way... Of course, I really haven't asked...
Anyway, those are my ramblings for anyone who happened to read them.
When was this posted? I totally lost control of my blog here. This is what happens when I don't post for a week...
Anyhow, I think that the assumption that artists have to be 'successful' is misplaced. Many artists aren't liked/respected in their times, and their art was reviled, not considered to be magnificent, and not considered to be beautiful...
Monet was poor, so was Renoir. Impressionism was highly criticized and thought to be against the 'natural order' of art, so much so that Impressionists had to create a Salon of the Refused to display their work.
What, then, was the point of Impressionists creating art, considering that it was largely a) unsuccessful, b) not considered to be aesthetic and c) critically rejected?
And it isn't as if the Impressionists, the widest known art genre of our day, were the only ones who suffered through this subjectivity issue... many others have had this same problem. Yet it never stopped them from making art.
Why did they make art, if not because they thought the art had its own merits or because they thought the work they were creating was beautiful in their own eyes? They certainly weren't doing it for money or to preserve the natural order; rather, the natural order had rejected them. It wasn't to please a target audience... other than other artists. It wasn't because the artists happened to be clairvoyant, knowing their art would be loved in the future... that seems a little off.
I think that those individuals felt that their art had its own merits and its own subjective aesthetic qualities. And I think also think they felt that their self-expression didn't need to be validated by anyone else, as I do.
Also, since many works have come to be appreciated now, you can't really argue that the beauty of these works was timeless; after all, it's safe to say that the beauty of these works was once rejected, which implies that the art's beauty is quite finite. And I'm not sure how that can fit into the natural order of things, other than to imply that the natural order and our traditions are always changing according to a re-defining of our preferences.
But, you know what, this really doesn't matter. I've totally lost track of what I'm arguing about, plus I'm still upset that OSU kept Troy Smith in the whole Penn State game. They totally should have taken him out in the second half.
So... You're saying that "art for art's sake" is really just "art for the artist's sake" and, basically, that such artists are really just self-serving elitists who don't give a rip about higher ideals? Because, to me, that's what "creating something beautiful in their own eyes" sounds like (and especially the phrase "beautiful to other artists"...)...
If so, I don't think I can argue with that. :-)
As for art having its own merit... Doesn't that imply that there is some value in art that is independent of it being subjectively recognized? I'm never one to claim that the culture recognizes the actual "natural order" of aesthetics. (I'm thiking of it in a near-Platonic form sense, really.) I'm of the opinion that there is some Perfect Beauty, of which the earthly manifestations are just reflections. But, culturally, we recognize certain reflections as Beautiful, and reject other reflections because, well, we're imperfect and human. But, that doesn't change the fact that there is a Perfect Beauty.
I think I've realized something... The crux of the argument seems to be that, at least on this issue, you're more Aristotelian (art is defined by art) while I'm more Platonist (art is defined by how much it reflects Perfect Art).
Which is, of course, very interesting, but unresolvable.
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