User:WayneKeller927

The greatest discoveries in art history, as in so many fields, tend to come from those working outside the box.youtube.com I’ve spent my life looking at art and analyzing it, and I’ve even brought a new discipline’s approach to art history. Because my academic work bridges art history and criminology (being a specialist in art crime), my own out-of-the-box contribution is treating artworks like crime scenes, whodunnits, and police procedurals. I examine Caravaggio’s "Saint Matthew Cycle" as if the three paintings in it are photographs of a crime scene, which we must analyze with as little a priori prejudice, and as much clean logic, as possible.


Ernst Gombrich made waves when he dipped into optics in his book, "Art and Illusion." Freud offered a new analysis of Leonardo. The Copiale cipher, an encoded, illuminated manuscript, was solved by Kevin Knight, a computer scientist and linguist.youtube.com It takes an outsider to start a revolution. So it is not entirely surprising that a neuroscientist would open this art historian’s eyes, but my mind is officially blown. I feel like a veil has been pulled aside, and for that I am grateful. Ask your average person walking down the street what sort of art they find more intimidating, or like less, or don’t know what to make of, and they’ll point to abstract or minimalist art.


Kandel’s work explains this in a simple way. In abstract painting, elements are included not as visual reproductions of objects, but as references or clues to how we conceptualize objects. In describing the world they see, abstract artists not only dismantle many of the building blocks of bottom-up visual processing by eliminating perspective and holistic depiction, they also nullify some of the premises on which bottom-up processing is based. We scan an abstract painting for links between line segments, for recognizable contours and objects, but in the most fragmented works, such as those by Rothko, our efforts are thwarted. Thus the reason abstract art poses such an enormous challenge to the beholder is that it teaches us to look at art — and, in a sense, at the world — in a new way.


Abstract art dares our visual system to interpret an image that is fundamentally different from the kind of images our brain has evolved to reconstruct. Kandel describes the difference between "bottom up" and "top down" thinking. This is basic stuff for neuroscience students, but brand new for art historians. Top down thinking, on the other hand, is based on our personal experience and knowledge (not ingrained in us as humans with millennia of experiences that have programmed us). Top down thinking is needed to interpret formal, symbol or story-rich art. Abstraction taps bottom-up thinking, requiring little to no a priori knowledge. Kandel is not the first to make this point.


Henri Matisse said, "We are closer to attaining cheerful serenity by simplifying thoughts and figures. Simplifying the idea to achieve an expression of joy. " But it helps to have a renowned scientist, who is also a clear writer and passionate art lover, convert the ideas of one field into the understanding of another. The shock for me is that abstraction should really be less intimidating, as it requires no advanced degrees and no reading of hundreds of pages of source material to understand and enjoy.youtube.com We might think that "reading" formal paintings, particularly those packed with symbols or showing esoteric mythological scenes, are what require active problem-solving.


At an advanced academic level, they certainly do (I racked my brain for years over that Bronzino painting). But at any less-scholarly level, for most museum-goers, this is not the case.youtube.com Looking at formal art is actually a form of passive narrative reading, because the artist has given us everything our brain expects and knows automatically how to handle. It looks like real life. But the mind-bending point that Kandel makes is that abstract art, which strips away the narrative, the real-life, expected visuals, requires active problem-solving. We instinctively search for patterns, recognizable shapes, formal figures within the abstraction. We want to impose a rational explanation onto the work, and abstract and minimalist art resists this.youtube.com It makes our brains work in a different, harder, way at a subconscious level.


Though we don’t articulate it as such, perhaps that is why people find abstract art more intimidating, and are hastier to dismiss it. It requires their brains to function in a different, less comfortable, more puzzled way. More puzzled even than when looking at a formal, puzzle painting. Kandel told The Wall Street Journal that the connection between abstract art and neuroscience is about reductionism, a term in science for simplifying a problem as much as possible to make it easier to tackle and solve.youtube.com This is why he studied giant sea snails to understand the human brain. Sea snails have just 20,000 neurons in their brains, whereas humans have billions. The simpler organism was easier to study and those results could be applied to humans.


"This is reductionism," he said, "to take a complex problem and select a central, but limited, component that you can study in depth. Rothko — only color. And yet the power it conveys is fantastic. In fact, some of the [https://www.virtosuart.com best abstract art] abstract artists began in a more formal style, and peeled the form away. Turner, Mondrian and Brancusi, for instance, have early works in a quite realistic style. We like to think of abstraction as a 20th century phenomenon, a reaction to the invention of photography. Painting and sculpture no longer had to fulfill the role of record of events, likenesses and people — photography could do that.


So painting and sculpture was suddenly free to do other things, things photography couldn’t do as well. Things like abstraction. But that’s not the whole story. A look at ancient art finds it full of abstraction. Most art history books, if they go back far enough, begin with Cycladic figurines (dated to 3300-1100 BC). Abstracted, ghost-like, sort-of-human forms. Even on cave walls, a few lines suggest an animal, or a constellation of blown hand-prints float on a wall in absolute darkness. Abstract art is where we began, and where we have returned. It makes our brains hurt, but in all the right ways, for abstract art forces us to see, and think, differently.


Russian Suprematist artist Kazimir Malevich furthered this flatness by placing flat colorful shapes on pure white backgrounds in his works, and De Stijl painter Piet Mondrian painted flat grids in red, blue, yellow, white, and black. Surrealist painters, who were concerned with tapping into the subconscious, created biomorphic shapes and organic lines, channeling the imaginative drawings of a child. Abstract expressionists approach abstract paintings by experimenting with gesture. These works were called action paintings because they served as a document of the painters’ literal actions, be it walking around the canvas dripping paint a la Pollock or revealing the aggressive brushstrokes of Willem de Kooning. As with other abstract movements, these painters emphasized color and how the work corresponds with their own inner emotions over shape or form.


Abstract art prints allows the viewer to decide what the artwork is about, on a very personal level. Pollock's critic didn't know where to begin in terms of how to understand abstract art. There is nothing to hold onto in terms of interpreting the painting, so you have to open up your intuition and see where the painting takes you. You have to engage with the painting, because it won't tell you what it's about. If you want to fully appreciate an artwork, it's important to understand the artist's reasoning behind it. On the one hand, a large part of the beauty of art is that we, the viewers, can bring our own meaning and assign our own context to an artwork based upon our memories, personalities and life experiences.


We don't need to know exactly what the artwork is supposed to be about in order to feel a deep appreciation for it. On the other hand, knowing the artist's thought process for creating a certain work of art adds a further layer of meaning and value to each of our individual interpretations of a piece. It might take a bit of extra legwork, but in the end it's definitely worth the effort to read a bit about the artist's intention behind a piece of art. This will further deepen your quest on how to understand abstract art. All art is created within a certain context. Artists, like their art, are shaped by the era in which they are working.


They are influenced by what is happening in society, politics, and the current streams of intellectual thought - intermingled with everyday pop culture and their own daily lives. All of these factors leave impressions on the artist's mind, knowingly or not, and in turn determine the form and direction of the artwork. Nothing exists in a vacuum, and that includes art! Abstract art has been around since we were cavemen, the earliest known works dating back 70,000 years. In that sense, there is nothing new or radical in contemporary abstract art as we know it. All cultures, from ancient to modern times, have a form of abstract art. Just think of African block-print cloths, intricate Tibetan beadwork, Navajo blankets, Islamic geometric designs - just to name a few. These cultures have been producing their abstract artworks for centuries, before Western art finally began producing its own version.


It's well worth the time to learn how to understand abstract art. Abstract paintings and drawings tap into a fundamental, primitive part of our existence - the part of us that experiences life without words, beyond language, transcending definitions. By utilizing the pure elements of form, color, line, texture, pattern, composition and process, abstract artwork allows artists freedom and flexibility in expressing their world views and inner realities. Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an attempt to reproduce an illusion of visible reality.


The arts of cultures other than the European had become accessible and showed alternative ways of describing visual experience to the artist. By the end of the 19th century many artists felt a need to create a new kind of art which would encompass the fundamental changes taking place in technology, science and philosophy. The sources from which individual artists drew their theoretical arguments were diverse, and reflected the social and intellectual preoccupations in all areas of Western culture at that time. Abstract art, nonfigurative art, nonobjective art, and nonrepresentational art are loosely related terms. They are similar, but perhaps not of identical meaning.


Abstraction indicates a departure from reality in depiction of imagery in art. This departure from accurate representation can be only slight, or it can be partial, or it can be complete. Abstraction exists along a continuum. Even art that aims for verisimilitude of the highest degree can be said to be abstract, at least theoretically, since perfect representation is likely to be exceedingly elusive. Artwork which takes liberties, altering for instance color and form in ways that are conspicuous, can be said to be partially abstract. Total abstraction bears no trace of any reference to anything recognizable. In geometric abstraction, for instance, one is unlikely to find references to naturalistic entities. Figurative art and total abstraction are almost mutually exclusive. But figurative and representational (or realistic) art often contains partial abstraction. Both geometric abstraction and lyrical abstraction are often totally abstract. Among the very numerous art movements that embody partial abstraction would be for instance fauvism in which color is conspicuously and deliberately altered vis-a-vis reality, and cubism, which blatantly alters the forms of the real life entities depicted.


Get inspiration and ideas for abstract paintings. If you're looking for painting ideas or abstract art inspiration, this collection of photos, and suggestions of how they could be developed into paintings, is the place to start. It's much easier to use something 'real' as the starting point for developing an abstract painting, rather than grabbing an idea out of nothing. Look at the photos for shapes and patterns, rather than what the object is. Simplify down the elements, consider alternate colors, focus in on a small part of the photo. Then do it again, and again. That's how ideas for paintings are developed. You're welcome to use the photos to create paintings of your own, subject to these terms and conditions. When you get really close to a foxglove, poking your nose into one of the segments, you're in a weird pattern of dots and splotches. Perfect for painting wet-on-wet, touching the tip a brush with one color onto a still-wet color, letting the paint spread.


Aesthetic appreciation is ubiquitous. We frequently value the aesthetic qualities of our surroundings and other people in terms of beauty, liking, or attractiveness. But people bring much more to the aesthetic experience than acquired knowledge. They engage with the objects of aesthetic experience in a certain mood, or after encountering other affective objects. This is the case, for instance, with museum visits, where many different artworks are viewed in succession. The goal of the present paper is to ascertain the extent to which previous affective states and experiences influence aesthetic appreciation. The results of a number of studies using the AMP are congruent with the assumption that the affective response to suboptimal primes is transferred (unconsciously misattributed) to the evaluative judgment. Among the factors that modulate the effects of affective priming, the stimuli onset asynchrony (SOA) and the kind of stimulus used as prime have received most attention.


However, studies using facial expressions as primes have reported conflicting results. Such results suggest that the strength of the priming effects of facial expressions var with SOA duration, as other kinds of visual stimuli. The importance of this discrepancy resides in the fact that the SOA is a crucial moderator of affective priming effects, playing a determinant role in participants’ awareness of primes. This controversy has extended into the affective priming literature. Because most of this work has focused on the emotional expressions of happiness, anger, sadness, and fear, little is known about the extent to which other kinds, such as expressions of disgust, have biasing effects on cognitive processes. Thus, despite recent interest in the emotion of disgust, sparked in part due to its distinctive underlying neural network, its affective priming effects, compared to those of other emotions, have hardly been investigated.


Although noting that fear expressions lead to stronger subliminal priming effects than disgust, the results showed that expressions of disgust are capable of inducing priming effects, particularly when serving as alarms for social threat in a context of true interaction. In sum, there is a need to clearly ascertain whether facial expressions of happiness and disgust are capable of producing priming effects to the same extent, and whether there are differences depending on the SOAs (i.e., brief vs. On the basis of the foregoing, the objective of this study is to ascertain the extent to which previously activated affective processing influences aesthetic liking for abstract art. As the above reviewed literature has shown, affective priming is an ideal paradigm to test the impact of affect on valuation. Specifically, this study contrasts two main hypotheses. First, since it is presumed that the affect elicited by facial expression primes (happiness, disgust or no emotion) is transferred to the targets, differences in aesthetic evaluation of the target stimuli (abstract artworks) are expected. The direction of the effect is hypothesized to depend on the type of prime (lower ratings for disgust primes, higher ratings for happiness primes). Additionally, we designed the experiment to allow an exploration of the time course of the predicted priming effects over blocks.


My girls love the freedom of creating abstract art projects. They can experiment with colors, shapes, and lines and really enjoy the creative process. For this project, we’re basically making a piece of art, cutting it up, and gluing it down to make a whole new creation. Pretty much anything goes as far as materials for this art project. If you want a low-mess, quick project, stick with crayons and markers. But, this works equally well with paints, watercolors, oil pastels, or any combination of art materials. This would be fun to do with one of your little one’s fingerpaintings, too! My girls used markers and crayons, filling their pages with doodles, shapes, and random patches of color. A heavier paper is nice, but not necessary unless you are using watercolors or other paints. They had a lot of fun making their art look as crazy as possible!


When your artwork is complete, it’s time to cut it up! If you used paints, make sure you let your project dry completely before cutting. Cut your paper into strips, squares, or rectangles. Natalie chose to cut hers into 1″ strips, and Delaney went with 3″ squares. I cut these with a paper cutter, but you could also draw lines on the back and cut with scissors. You’ll need a larger piece of paper for your background. Our drawings were on 9″x12″ paper, so we used 12″x18″ construction paper for our backgrounds. The background paper was a little bit long, so I just trimmed a couple inches off one side. Mix up your pieces and start arranging them on the background.


Try different patterns until you find the one you like, then glue your pieces down. You might like an organized grid with equal spacing, or a more random placement. It’s abstract art - anything goes! My girls found this process really intriguing. Do a drawing with only black pen. Paint a self-portrait, cut it up, and arrange it in an unusual way. Draw or paint a landscape. Take a photo, print it as an 8″x10″, and use it for this project. Trade some pieces with another person. I hope you try this with your kids - I think they will love it!