I find it intriguing to contemplate how an artist may make broad swathes (or skinny lines, for that matter, in a fine, chaotic way and that's indisputably "an abstraction" by current art standards anyway. abut an artist/photographer can find footprints willy-nilly in the snow, see a pattern of motion laid down by an unknown maker, and that's not an abstraction but, somehow, a "thing".
I'm not complaining, mind you, but there's muddy water at the foot of that slippery slope.
Personally, I like the ur-definition of abstraction as the act of reducing a thing to its absolute essentials while maintaining the essence or gestalt of the thing. |
