Earlier, Thomas challenged me to post examples of abstract art and to explain what it means (immediately after I had provided a link to a thread which I informed him contained examples of my doing so), so I promised to post some examples from that previous thread directly to this current thread, and to repost them again later if necessary.
Here, I wrote about the following paintings:
The first gives me the feeling of energy, determination and action. It’s meaning is that mankind should be strong and bold, and pursue his passions. The specific angularity and proportions of the shapes is what conveys motion and rising to me, the dramatic contrasts and bold colors suggest passion, heat, pressure and struggle, and the bulk of the forms and the roughness of the textures give me the feeling of strength and rugged durability. I see it as a very physically masculine painting. It’s extroverted, dominant, serious and aggressive. It’s like Atlas pushing upward.
The second image gives me the feeling of serenity. It’s meaning is that peace and gentleness are important human qualities. The colors are subdued and calming. There is practically no drama or contrast – the forms are delicate and faint, and they convey a soothing gentleness, playfulness and weightlessness. The image is like a visual whisper. I see it as a very physically feminine painting. It’s withdrawn and introverted, and anything but aggressive. It’s like a mother caressing a child.
In this post, Grames asked me to identify meaning in abstract paintings that he posted.
Here’s what I wrote:
I would say the first painting gives me the feeling of enjoying the unexpected or seemingly contradictory. The circle seems to have great mass, yet the image has compositional motion and lightness. Its high contrast, lack of hue, and rather precise rendering gives me a feeling of formal seriousness, but the off-centeredness adds a sense of playfullness. Translated to more physically detailed terms, I would say that the image gives the sort of feeling that I might get from seeing something like a large defensive lineman doing ballet, and doing it surprisingly well. The meaning I get out of the image is valuing discovering the unexpected, or moving beyond conventional methods of thinking or seeing.
The second image gives the feeling of being in the presence of power. It is balanced, perfectly proportioned and immobile, but enveloping me or pulling me in. (The scan is rotated about 0.5 degrees CCW, but I’m asssuming that is an error made by whomever scanned and posted it online.) The image implies power to me, but it doesn’t seem to suggest either passionate good or evil, but dispassionate amorality. Translated to Aristotelian/Randian terms, I’d say that it is an Immovable Mover. The meaning that I get out of it is that man is godlike.
As for the third image, I think I’d need to see it in person to judge it. As it’s showing up on my monitor, it is way outside the gamma range of reflective colors and therefore is very unlikely to be an accurate representation of the original. I suspect that the original has an intensity that can’t be matched digitally, or is very difficult to match digitally (the same can be true of certain orange tones and lime greens).
J