Scott: So, first of all, what’s wrong with my tone?

Second, and more important, when you (or anyone) says “Well, that’s your opinion…” that is simply a way of evading discussion which (and this has been my point) is precisely what art people seem to relish doing.

Of course we’re all entitled to our opinions. It is simply the case, though, that some opinions are objectively worse (more ill founded than others).

I can look at that animal over there in the corner — the animal that people uniformly and customarily (in English) call a “cat”, and say, well, I don’t care what you say, because in my opinion, that’s a horse. If I did so, I suspect you would have something more to say than merely “Well, that’s just YOUR opinion.”

Now, of course, I’d be free to have that opinion, but it’d be a stupid opinion to have.

While people may have differing opinions as to which horse is the fastest, or which cat is the cuddliest, few will differ on the definitional fact of which animal is a horse, and which is a cat.

Similarly, people may differ about who is the best, say, baseball player. Few people watching a game will have any difficulty distinguishing a game of baseball from something else (a game of whist, or a boardroom meeting).

Art, however seems so utterly devoid of standards that unlike any enterprise, anyone can call any slapdash effort “art” and, if challenged will respond, “You don’t think it’s art?…well that’s YOUR opinion.”

When an enterprise offers no way of distinguishing “X” from “non-X” (art from non-art, science from non-science, bowling from non-bowling), and really not even a decent way of distinguishing good from bad, one can say that the enterprise suffers a very severe flaw.

I can think of no enterprise that suffers so completely from this lack of standards (the inability to distinguish “art” from “non-art”, or good art from bad) as the visual arts, and more specifically, non-representational abstract art.

This is hardly surprising, given the nature of the “art” in which they are interested. The essence of non-representational abstract art is: (1)Make something obscure; (2)Hang it up.; (3) Wait to see what happens. (4)If anyone questions, or claims not to understand the value of this “art”, do not defend it, and never ever acknowledge that perhaps you, the artist, has failed to communicate. Blame the failure on the observer — that Philistine who is too limited to understand.

It appears that those who believe in pursuing steps 1-4 in art, engage in conversations following just this same pattern.

Well, you’re starting off with the wrong tone: There has been plenty of discussion here and I think that it is sufficient. It is not my intention to become a defender of a particular style and I mostly find these snotty little screeds to be childish at best. Your taste in art does not represent the definition of art; it is just how YOU feel about it. Everyone has an opinion. – Pagani.

Why do you propose that it takes a certain amount of bravery to make abstract art? I keep seeing and hearing artists say that, but I see no evidence for the proposition that making abstract art is “risky” or brave.

In fact, I submit that making abstract art is less risky than making any other kind:

1) Although I have seen movies, plays and novels reviewed negatively and positively, I have virtually NEVER seen a negative review of an abstract art show. I suspect that this is because of the “Emperor’s New Clothes” phenomenon. A critic’s career can be made by being the first one to recognize new artist “X” as the “genius” he is later discovered to be. On the other hand, if you negatively review artist “X”, and he still gains favor in the art community, the critic will be seen as having failed.

On the other hand, representational art can be given bad reviews, because there are ways of actually judging its merits (likeness, etc.)

You use soccer or playing an instrument as metaphors, but these fail as well. In soccer, there are absolute ways of measuring success or failure, (goals, wins, losses, etc.). In music, too, there are measures of success (Pitch, tone, key, rhythm). A band member who is off key, or out of tempo with his band mates sticks out like a sore thumb.

There have been many studies done, in which even art aficionados have difficulty distinguishing works of abstract “masters” from those of children or chimps.

On the other hand, no one would mistake a child, banging around on a piano, for the playing of an experienced pianist.

I think that abstract (non-figurative) art is unique among all enterprises in its lack of standards.

As a painter who’s worked in a nonrepresentational mode for many years, this strikes me as a huge oversimplification: just pick a thesis, paint an illustration of that thesis, hang it on the wall with an artist’s statement that explains the thesis (because how else would you, the viewer, have a basis against which to measure the painting’s “success” or “failure”?), and wait for the verdict from the masses. If you want to treat what’s essentially an open-ended process, which can spread across dozens or even hundreds of pieces of artwork, as a pass/fail situation, fine… but that’s just not how it works.

Your choice of metaphor (the detective novel) doesn’t do the job here, mostly because novels require reading — which is itself the mental unpacking of three or four levels of abstraction: from perceived interior and exterior realities into concepts, then into sounds/speech, then into readable lines and circles on a page. Representational painters choose to translate their perceptions in fewer steps, and abstract or nonobjective painters in even fewer. It’s not a matter of laziness (when approached honestly) so much as choosing a level of abstraction at which to focus.

Try a different metaphor: when you walk through a flower-garden, you’re probably not expecting the garden to justify itself — you’re using your senses (in conjunction with your intellect, or maybe not… it’s not mandatory) and moving through an infinite number of combinations of colors, scents, textures, sounds and tactile experiences. Your brain may be quiet, or you may be identifying various species of plants, picking a direction in which to wander, thinking you could use a cold drink, or whatever. The point is, you’re present and experiencing what’s around you in a discrete (singular) way.

Some might say, “But a garden isn’t anything like a painting!”. Yeah, that’s right, it’s just a bunch of plants and rocks and mulch and dirt (let’s call them “materials”) that someone deliberately arranged into certain configurations and structures (let’s say “compositions”), for the enjoyment, contemplation and perhaps enlightenment of whoever uses it. Hmm. Too bad there wasn’t a sign right outside the gate that took care of transmitting the “meaning” or “point” or “purpose” of the place directly into a visitor’s brain… to save them the trouble of having to actually walk around inside. What you’re doing in that garden could be described as a constantly-shifting spectrum of translation or abstraction, in which you decide what to focus on, how much attention to pay, and what sense you take with you. The gardener has edited your possibilities for you by choosing a layout, a palette, a design, a path, and borders. What you do with it is really up to you; but you absolutely won’t experience it if you don’t open the gate and go in.

Abstract art takes a certain degree of bravery and faith to make (to make well), and all kinds of conscious deliberation. If you don’t make this kind of art yourself, it’s understandably hard to accept this proposition on faith. But once you start to realize that an abstract painting (a good one… and there are a billion ways in which they can be made badly) is less about making a “picture of something” and more about making an object which can contain a set of experiences — which can hopefully be accessed by a willing viewer — it can change the way in which you approach the thing. Eventually, perhaps, this kind of experiential exercise can even change the way in which you inhabit the space around you. That’s why abstract art continues to get made, and (I think) why people still bother to interact with it.

Sounds kind of woo-woo and hokey, doesn’t it? But if you think I’m making it all up, go walk in the woods or along a stretch of beach (or anyplace you feel undistracted) and try noticing things without immediately naming them or thinking of their “purpose.” It’s harder than it sounds. Now try making a piece of art which can somehow not only contain that effort but make even a flash of it light up in someone else. You may, in fact, “fail.” In fact, you almost certainly will… at least for awhile. But as with practicing soccer, playing an instrument, or learning to relate to a person you love, it will hopefully be a process of “failing forward” toward greater success later. If you care to keep it up, that is. The circumstances will be about the same for the viewer of your art… except that the viewer has the luxury of standing outside the whole process and insisting on criteria that he or she has no way of knowing are appropriate to the work, unless the artist, curator or gallerist has written it all out for them. (Represented in lines and circles and shapes that are symbols for meaning and speech and perception, remember. A level of abstraction inviting you to translate and make sense.)

The first question an artist must ask him/herself is this: Who is this piece of art for — is it for me, to work out some ideas I have, or is it for a viewing public?

If the answer is, “It’s just for me, I don’t care what anyone else thinks of it,”, then fine. Put the painting in your attic and don’t invite anyone to look at it.

Once, however, the artist bangs a nail into a wall, and hangs a painting on it, the artist is saying to the world, “Hey, look at this. I have something I want you all to see. I am saying something special here that I need to communicate.”

And if it is the intention of the artist to communicate, then the success of the artist and his work must be measured against that intention.

If I write a novel about a detective in the 1040′s who is following clues, to discover the perpetrator of a murder, this novel may be judged in several ways — its literary merits (or lack), its choices of language, the richness (or not) of its characters, the originality of its plot, and so on. But at its most basic level, it must be judged on the basis of whether I have communicated to my reading audience what I mean to.

If readers read my 1940′s detective novel, and are uncertain whether it is about a 1940′s detective, or possibly about werewolves in space in the future, or possibly a romance story between two fish, then it is fair to say that I have failed (even though readers who understand a story may reasonably debate about a story’s nuance — some may think the detective a good guy, or a bad guy, or morally ambiguous).

Similarly, an artist’s work, when displayed publicly, must be measured against whether the artist has communicated what he intends to.

If an artist makes an abstract painting that is inspired by a picnic at the beach, meaning to communicate the joy he experienced that day, but the viewer sees it as a warlike explosion, then it can fairly be said that the artist has failed.

In this regard, I submit, abstract, non-representational art, is invariably a failure.

Some artists exclusively copy from photograph, but they become a slave to it, and most good ones don’t copy from photographs like a slave. There is a lot to copying photographs in representational art- it’s about learning composition, science of perspective and lighting. And it is about telling a story, creating worlds, creating a mood, which is the true purpose of representational art.

Photographs are just references, don’t be a slave to it. It is a tool for beginner students.Remember, Da Vinci didn’t have any photographs..Da Vinci studied perspective and the science of light with a passion.

It is a common misconception, and a common reason why people think that representation gets boring..well if all I do is copying photographs, it really becomes brainless and boring too!