Is Art Abstract or Representational?
Author: Curt Doll

Rembrandt van Rijn began his career painting very realistic and polished portraits and landscapes. By the end of his career, having satisfied his need to show the world his masterly technique and draftsmanship, he began to paint what was in his heart. His last works are quite literally splashes and daubs of paint. While they still maintain a representational quality, they are abstract in nature.

What we carry in our hearts, love for example, is beyond any kind of description that any of our five senses can understand or comprehend. Consider the progression of Michelangelo’s “David” created in the beginning of his career to the “Rondanini Pieta” sculpted at the end of his career.

The “Rondanini Pieta” is said to be unfinished but the proportions of the figures along with their gestures and harmonious attitudes display a gentle depth of feeling that his earlier works lack. Consider some of the many 20th century examples such as Matisse and Picasso who began painting polished representational images early in their careers but then made a gradually increasing transition into the realm of abstract imagery.

Matisse and Picasso studied human anatomy as did Rembrandt and Michelangelo. All four studied perspective. All four studied traditional drafting and painting techniques. All four utilized abstract compositional themes. Rembrandt ended his career as he excelled in the use of heavy texture; Michelangelo excelled in complimentary color contrasts in the Sistine ceiling and in abstract form in the Rondanini Pieta; Matisse was unsurpassed in the use of patterns; Picasso was a genius of many design elements and principles as were all of the truly great masters.

Personally I can enjoy a polished representational work of art if it combines a solid use of abstract design elements and principles which, when applied together make an aesthetically sound composition. However, an abstract image that is devoid of composition is as dry and lifeless as open space.

A few design principles are balance, harmony, divergence, unity, movement, rhythm, pattern, contrast, proportion and emphasis. Many artists have spent their entire lives concentrating on the combination of only one design element and one design principle.

Regardless of whether your personal inclination is to paint or draw in a realistic manner or in any one of the many stylized or abstract styles, the simple fact is that all of the great masters recognized the absolute necessity of developing an ever deepening grasp of both naturalistic form along with abstract design elements and principles. Good design depends upon how one orders the basic design elements.

I was taught that there are five design elements; line, shape, color, value and texture. When working on a flat surface, shape and value work together to create form. On an abstract level, form is the result of the combination and order of one or more of the design elements within the parameters of specific Design Principles. With the addition of color, the form evokes a stronger "feeling". It is given more substance.

How one orders these design elements within a structured symmetrical or asymmetrical design is dependent upon the personality of the individual artist. Adherence to the development of balance is a traditional, very classical goal. However, for the purpose of evoking certain psychological themes, a strong imbalance can be very effective.

The use of color as a design element with the effective employment of its principles is worthy of lifetimes of experimentation. Color has a breadth and depth of expressive qualities which make it stand out among the other design elements.

The psychological, symbolic and spiritual aspects of color are of great interest. According to Johannes Itten; yellow symbolizes piercing intellect, red is the heaviest of the three primaries which makes it the most earth-bound of the three and blue, because of its receding quality, in other words its depth, is the most spiritual of colors. Green is symbolic of burgeoning Spring and the Resurrection of Christ. White symbolizes purity. Violet is symbolic of royalty and on and on.

When working with pigments, yellow, especially when placed on a dark ground is the most luminous of colors. Because stained glass is actually colored light, (RGB), its properties are quite different. Cobalt blue is the most luminous color in a stained glass window. You can easily see how an artist could spend an entire lifetime on one design element and one design principle.

At http://www.curtisgraphics.com/philosophy.html there is a color chart in which I have illustrated the intermixture of the three primary pigment colors, RYB (red, yellow and blue), using the three primary print colors CMY, (cyan, magenta and yellow) excluding black, (K). The addition of black, (K), is necessary in the printing process in order to equal out the contrast of value and add depth to the color range.

I have excluded blacK from this color chart to illustrate the pure range of color mixtures. In this color chart I have illustrated the intermixture of the complementary colors on the color wheel. This color chart combines both pigment complimentary intermixtures with the compliments used in photo lithographic printmaking. It also shows the percentage of intermixtures between each of two complimentary colors and the gray scale gradating from 100% black to 100% white.

I used this scale of measurement to illustrate that gray remains 50% whether you are analyzing light or pigment or ink. When working with light, black being the absence of light equals 0% and white equals 100% or 255 when working with Photoshop. When working with pigment the reverse is true. Black equals 100% and white equals 0%. Thus, light mixtures are additive and the mixture of pigment is subtractive simply because when you add colored light the result is more luminous but when you add colored pigment the result is always increasingly more muted. An equal mixture of all three primary pigments equals a very dark, almost black while an equal mixture of all three primary colors in light equals a brilliant white light.

I believe the future of design will see more substance in terms of a mélange of classical as well as contemporary themes introduced by artists living in the present. We posses an extremely broad history of art that can be drawn upon with the introduction of both small and sometimes very large innovations.

The art you can view at http://www.curtisgraphics.com/f_artpg.html are in themselves "Metaphysical Symbols". Form and color are combined, united and harmonized to create heart felt impressions of life. They are not meaningless abstractions. The concept of inner radiating light plays an integral role in the development of these images.

This light emanates from within a counterpoint of darkness and shadow. In some of these images the light is radiating from without almost hiding the shadow. In others the light is radiating from within the darkness and is almost hidden. The light expresses all the positive forces of nature including growth and expansion, the power of intellect and most important, the power of transcendental love. The darkness elicits the dark forces of nature and of humankind: anger; resentment; hatred; complacency. Ironically, we cannot have one without the other. The darkness increases the beauty of the light just as evil contrasting benevolence enhances the joy one experiences by doing a good deed. It is an eternal paradox.

Stained Glass is an environmental art form. As light floods the interior of a church or synagogue, the inner space is transformed into a mystical source of joy, peace and tranquility. The Stained Glass Designs at http://www.curtisgraphics.com/stgls.html are expressions of a deeply felt inner searching for the eternal.

These works are characterized by a fusion of color, form and texture. My experience with stained glass design has familiarized me with the power of light and the difference between the three primary colors of light, RGB (red, green and blue); the primaries used in printmaking, CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black); and the three primary pigment colors, RYB (red, yellow and blue), and how they break down into their cool and warm, saturated and unsaturated counterparts.

In summation, these works are about light. This is because of my background in stained glass design and working with colored light. Stained glass as an environmental art form transforms the interior of its setting. At: http://www.curtisgraphics.com/exp46.html Experiment 46 evokes an interior realm of existence deep within. There are conflicting elements within each of us. Refined to their most basic common denominator they are positive and negative forces which animate us and make us who we are.






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Curt is an artist working in graphic design, illustration, web site design, photographic manipulation, multimedia, fine art prints and stained glass design at: CurtisGraphics Design Services Studio http://www.curtisgraphics.com/ For more info, e-Mail at: info@curtisgraphics.com

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