How Artists Represent the World Essay

Abstract artists have been greatly criticized and underestimated for their lack of culture and sophistication produced in their artwork. Interpreting, reading and deriving meaningful, useful information from abstract art requires the highest level of creative skills, and the most developed and trained imaginations. Learning how to perceive messages from art takes just as many years of conscious effort as the traditional forms of education. As a result, art perception is not a significant part of formal education, dismissing art’s literacy’s importance as requiring a special â€Å"gift. † The Beginning, painted by Barnett Newman, appears to be very simple, basic, nothing more than colorful lines pasted against a blue background. â€Å"His (Newman’s) paintings can seem to be barely doing anything at all, and yet, given time and attention, they reveal depths and subtleties of immense power. â€Å"(Denny, 2002) The Beginning clarifies the underlying patterns and natural order of life sciences, shows the invisible connections from the sky to the ocean, and forever creates new life’s beginnings. The Beginnings is an image of a crystal ball used as a window for scrying into the ocean, and eventually seeing a mirroring effect of reality. All artwork, including abstract and surrealism, created only from imagination is a window to look into reality. â€Å"Alberti, in his De pittura (1435), harnessed the technique of perspective to the theory that painting is an imitation of reality. He viewed the picture plane as a window through which one looks at the visible world. † (â€Å"Perspective,† 2007) Realism art is a mirror image reflecting tangible existing objects. Realism art is definite, showing what the artist actually sees as he or she is making up the painting. Abstract art is a lot more complexed, but is still realistic. One of abstract art’s significant contributions is clarifying the underlying patterns, and the natural order of universal life, forcing deeper parts of the imagination that normally go unused to be activated. Using imagination to interpret art helps us to understand the facts that are hidden from us. Abstract paintings are nothing more than a mixture of colors. â€Å"Whitehead systematically elaborates in his imposing Process and Reality (1929), going so far as to suggest that process, rather than substance, should be taken as the fundamental metaphysical constituent of the world. † (Irvine, 2003) Barnett Newman’s abstract, The Beginning, background color is apparently early morning sky blue or a blue sea. Metaphysically, the sea and the daybreak sky symbolizes new beginnings. The sky represents a new day, everything pertaining to the sea or water symbolizes a new life, translating into life as having constant new beginnings, reflecting a reality we can never touch. Reality is constantly moving and changing. The sky and the sea also symbolizes movement. Using the alleged symbology of the colors and the name of the art as windows, we understand Newman’s interpretation of realism, or actual visual images of the reality of life occurring in nature. The structure or underlying pattern of the atmosphere’s progressions can be viewed in The Beginning. â€Å"Chaos theory reveals an underlying pattern and order that is hidden in natural phenomena that before were considered to be merely random. † Peirce, 1996 Assuming the light blue dominating most of the abstract represents the sky or the sea, and the alleged symbols represent the beginning of a new eternity, Newman is implying that this is the hidden underlying basis of what everyone thought had no beginning, such as lightning falling from the sky. Looking at the painting right side up, lightning bolts are coming from the sky in unusual colors. To the center left at the very bottom is a splash of darker blue upon impact of the lightning bolts hitting the sea. The lightning bolts are in red, yellow and white offset colors. Between the red and white lightning bolts, a blue lighting bolt is coming down, but does not have enough power or force to complete the journey. The lightning bolt blending in with the background spatial point stops before reaching its destination. â€Å"It would be a mistake to think of a spatial point as being anything more than an abstraction; instead, real positions involve the entire series of extended volumes. † (Irvine, 2003) The lightning bolt unable to reach its destination can also be the beginning of a pattern of sequential events. The white lightning bolt is the most powerful or forceful object in the painting. A light red line runs down the center of the white lightning bolt, making the loudest splash into the sea. Then the pattern starts over. To the left is the weakest lightning bolt. Angling from the upper left corner is a vivid red appearing to ending up in front of the splash where the white bolt hit. To the far right is the yellow lightning bolt, perhaps starting its own pattern of sequential events of connecting life between the sea and skies. â€Å"Studying the process of art can provoke the beast and initiate the journey within. † (Lodato-Suppa, 1996) Barnett Newman was famous for painting colorful bands calling them zips on sky blue canvases. It appears like there was nothing to it. (Ned Denny). Visualizing art is the same thing as listening to or composing music. The impact of art speaking directly to the subconscious is so powerful the mind is completely overtaken by its presence. Music and painting selections incorporated into everyday life should be taken with great caution because of it’s powerful effect on the mind. Interpreting art is a tool guiding us individually on life’s journey. References Hall, D. , Mills. , H (1996) The Society for the Advancement of Creative Scientific Thinking Society Charter Retrieved March 15, 2008 http://ibiblio. org/scst/charter. html Irvine A. D. (2003) Alfred North Whitehead Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved Retrieved March 15, 2008 Newman, Barnett. (2007). In The Columbia Encyclopedia (6th ed. ). New York: Columbia University Press. Retrieved March 15, 2008, from Questia database: http://www. questia. com/PM. qst? a=o&d=112876047 Contemporary Art. (2007). In The Columbia Encyclopedia (6th ed. ). New York: Columbia University Press. Retrieved March 15, 2008, from Questia database: http://www. questia. com/PM. qst? a=o&d=112853364 Perspective. (2007). In The Columbia Encyclopedia (6th ed. ). New York: Columbia University Press. Retrieved March 15, 2008, from Questia database: http://www. questia. com/PM. qst? a=o&d=112879220 Denny, N. (2002, October 7). Nothing to It: Ned Denny Discovers Great Depths and Subtleties in Emptiness. New Statesman, 131, 40+. Retrieved March 15, 2008, from Questia database: http://www. questia. com/PM. qst? a=o&d=5000662917 Lodato-Suppa, P. (1996). Awakening Picasso Learner/teacher as Artist. Education, 117(1), 106+. Retrieved March 15, 2008, from Questia database: http://www. questia. com/PM. qst? a=o&d=5000436049