What is Abstract Art & what for ?


Abstraction is a mental process we use when trying to discern what is essential or relevant to a problem; it does not require a belief in abstract entities.
— Palmer


• Considered apart from concrete existence, a state of having an intellectual and affective artistic content that depends solely on intrinsic form rather than on narrative content or pictorial representation.

• Existing only in concept and not in reality: hypothetic, hypothetical, ideal, theoretic, theoretical, transcendent, transcendental. See real/imaginary.

• Concerned primarly with theories rather than practical matters.


Abstract Art: A product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.
— Albert Camus


Perception is resulting from the mental faculty of abstraction/imagination.

Considering abstract art apart from any application to a particular object; separated from matter; existing in the mind only; as, abstract truth, abstract numbers. Hence: ideal; abstruse; difficult.

It chooses a basic feeling that all humanity shares and tend to fear this elemental condition of being: solitude, agony, anger..etc.


We are all hungry and thirsty for concrete images. Abstract art will have been good for one thing: to restore its exact virginity to figurative art.
— Salvador Dalí.


Under many circumstances, the artists is somehow pouring from his unconscious abstract lines filling the canvas/geometric minimalism on imaginary landscapes and so on..

Maintaining a dreamlike quality/thus enigmatic & unreal to the design is paramount as its inner meaning unfolds.

=roovel's selection :



The predispositions considered by abstract artists are to be considered because their metaphysical nature gives us a slightly confusing non-artistic judgment.

This approach reveals the real projection the eyes of a beholder might stumble upon.
Our judgement tend to be harsh, because we naturally avoid simplism and reductionism.

In any labour, any form of self expression, in the gestures & tenacity one deliberates an artistic self must be recognized.

Even if simplicity is shown in many 'chefs-d'oeuvre' with a high intensity ignoring complexities or complications, the eyes don't expect a simplistic view even if simple, an abstraction is always behind.. waiting.

Is their any truth an abstraction might represent ?

In external truth, it does appear in exact depictions of the outer world, or expressions of revealed or believed truth.
What if the conception of artistic truth is internal, does it reside in cultural understandings or individual expressions of emotions ?


=JakezDaniel's selection :


"Far from concrete world, abstract art is a key for a travel, a story offered by the artist to the watcher.

The story, the travel aren’t leading to any physical place, no, it leads us to deep into our self.

The artist gives us a key and the story will result of our deep psyche."


=Tom-Ripley's choice :


The geometrical nature of the scapes represented tend to disappear so to form a concrete trace of our self-projection .

=SLPdomain's choice :

" When abstraction was mentioned as the theme--i wasn't sure if it was for photography or everything.

That is why i have chosen this image---while its digital work--it gives the impression of a painting.

I find that digital cameras are a wonderful medium to create paintings.
This choice highlights the possibilities while remaining subtle and simple."

*pahness's choice :


In each artwork, a certain multiplicity of impulses is preeminent among the dimensions the artist wanted to create.


Brief conclusion :

In its minimalism the expression of abstractness is a dense ensemble of stimuli in which the impulse of the artist is reflected in the thoughts we behold.

The more interpretations we can create to one simple representation (work of art), the more freedom the artwork gains as well as the number of sources for inspiration, thus influence.

Abstract Art is one of the most delicate representations for an artist, it is an exact reflection or depiction of the nature of his inner potential to recreate what is unbearably painful, joyful, human..

All Artists are conditioned to the judgements we unconsciously tend to make, please respect the artists and their will.


Groups dedicated to Abstract Art :

_{Journal CSS by `ClaireJones}