Why Abstract Art Refuses to Explain Itself
Why Abstract Art Still Confuses Us (And Why That's the Whole Point) Many people simply mock the art of abstraction; they stand in front of it and half-jokingly ask, “What is it?” And this is a question that abstract art has been provoking for more than a century, simply because people are looking for a meaning behind every artwork. The power of abstraction is just that —that it doesn't have to have a meaning. Unlike other art forms like landscape and portrait, which define something or have some realism in it, abstract paintings are all about colors and forms, elements, or texture. This art refuses to hand you a subject to understand, a fruit to recognize, or a face to name; instead, it will make you look at it for a long time. What the color represents: does it show anger or love, or nothing at all- an emptiness, the line here or a circle there; the art is simply to admire. Two people can be looking at it at the same time with different stories, and nobody is wrong about...
