Abstraction.

                                                        

Untitled by:  Patrick Mahoney

35mm Kodachrome transparency, 1984

    Have you ever looked at an abstract work of art and wondered just what in the world the artist was thinking?  If you have, you are not alone.  Today, I am going to use this picture to try and help you understand how some artists see the world abstractly.

    The picture you are seeing here is actually a photograph of an actual scene in nature.  Anyone who had been there when the picture was taken would have seen the same thing.

    At first glance, we see a pleasing combination of shapes and colors and some recognizable objects such as trees and plants the blue of the sky.  But, are we looking up or down and just where are these shapes in actual space. 

    What you are seeing here is a shallow stream with a smooth, flat bottom in which very clear water is flowing.  This water is so smooth that it acts like a mirror reflecting the trees and sky above and the shadow of the iris plants on the bank.

    If the picture included more of the scene, we would immediately interpret the image as a stream in a Japanese garden and our brains would but all of the elements in their places.  The difference is in the artist's selection of a part of the overall scene.

    When I made this photograph, I saw the abstract quality of just this portion of the overall scene, because it produced a beautiful abstract pattern that was pleasing to my eye and seemed to need no explanation.

    Artists often learn to see the world abstractly as a way of distilling a complex scene into a manageable picture.  If I tried to paint every leaf on every tree in a scene, I could never succeed, but I can paint the trees in a kind of short hand and leave out much of the busy detail and still make them look like trees.

    All paintings are abstract to some degree otherwise, they would look just like photographs.  So the process of abstraction is a distillation or simplifying of the image.

    In this photograph, the distillation is in the framing and not in the simplifying of the image.  I have chosen a small part of the overall scene that presents a pleasing combination of shapes and colors and presents enough space to draw our attention.

    By explaining this photograph, I may be spoiling your enjoyment of the overall effect, but in this case, I am using it as an example to help you, the viewer, understand abstract images.

    I hope that I have succeeded in increasing your understanding and enjoyment of art with this brief explanation of one of my photographs and I welcome your feedback.  In a future post, I will address the concept of space in abstract painting.  Thanks again for reading and keep in touch.  Patrick "Potlick" Mahoney