Free Essay. Questions for Abstraction

1. Many people do not easily understand abstract art because of several hurdles. Firstly, abstract art is open to imagination, and thus there is no right or wrong meaning (McArdle, 2020). This vagueness creates a hindrance to understanding the artwork. Secondly, abstract art is difficult to understand because it does not contain recognizable objects. The viewer cannot comprehend the artwork at a cursory glance since there is nothing recognizable to grasp. Many viewers find it difficult to assign their own meaning to unfamiliar artworks.
2. Mondrian's Philadelphia's picture has some stark differences with Picasso's Philadelphia Violin painting. Mondrian's picture consists of geometric figures, which include variations of rectangles and squares. A combination of thick and thin lines are used to separate the color blocks in the picture. In contrast, Picasso's violin painting has no geometric figures and does not use color blocks. The picture has different residues that suggest human presence, signs of a violin, and an armchair.
3. Mondrian illustrates balance and purity in the Philadelphia picture through the use of geometric figures and distinct color combination. His balance is not axisymmetric since he used variations of shapes to create color blocks. To understand Mondrian's painting and other forms of abstraction, audiences need to have an open mindset and a wandering imagination.
4. Pollock used the direct painting method in his drawings. He applied paint directly onto empty canvas without making small sketches. Pollock combined keen movement with exact color blocks and borderlines. He felt his portrait wasn't the real art because he didn't plan his work before painting. Pollock used abstract expressionism, a form of spontaneous painting using gestural brush strokes.
5. 5. Throughout Pollock's painting, Carl Jung's influence is clear, with his artworks being connected to the unconscious. He used Jung's ideas of archetypes and collective unconscious to detail his thoughts and emotions. The use of color symbolism in his painting corresponds with Jung's concept of the human functions such as emotions, intuition, thinking, and sensation (Sedivi, 2009).
6. Kelly did not adhere to strict medium specificity, and thus his works lack distinct materiality. His artworks are not specific to any medium, and his paintings are based on random scribbles. A clear example is the Seine painting, which lacks specificity.
7. Kelly did not view his work as typical modernist abstractions because his painting demonstrated unassuming techniques based on color, line, and form. Kelly's Train Landscape continues with the discussion of Cezanne's Mont-Saint Victoire series by using three joined panels on canvas.
8. Rothko's earnest intentions were to be intimate and human in all his work (Yankovsky, 2019). He used abstraction to express fundamental human emotions, such as ecstasy and doom. He was not keen on the commercialization of his painting as he wanted his work to create an awe-inspiring intensity to its viewers.
9. Rothko hoped that using personal experiences in his work would help to connect viewers on a collective level. According to Jung's collective unconscious, Rothko's aim is paradoxical as personal experiences do not influence the objective psyche as it is genetically inherited.
10. Rothko preferred a large installation of his works as he believed that his artwork spoke to universal humanity. He often suggested a room-size installation of his painting to create architectural sensibility. He firmly believed that large scale pictures had the appeal to be intimate and human.
11. Abstract painting is an art that can be learned through experience. Abstract painting is a process of simplification which can be learned by doing and undoing, unifying with glazes, and using more suggestion and less description (Tara, 2018).

Bibliography

McArdle, Thaneeya (2020). "Understanding Abstract Art." Art is Fun, 2020, https://www.art-is-fun.com/understanding-abstract-art

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Sedivi, Amy Elizabeth (2009). "Unveiling the Unconscious: The Influence of Jungian Psychology on Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko" Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 284. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/284

Tara (2018). "16 ways to make a painting more abstract." Tara Leaver, 8 Jan. 2018, https://taraleaver.com/2018/01/16-ways-to-make-a-painting-more-abstract/

Yankovsky, Dasha (2019). "How to understand art on the example of Mark Rothko." The Journal, 25 Jan. 2019, https://blog.usejournal.com/how-to-understand-art-on-the-example-of-mark-rothko-7ab97245d8ce