A conversion between the past and future – understanding ‘Abstractionism’, comparing children’s abstract art with profound artists
Author: Annie Zhang
Thanks to: Winnie ,Vincent & Ying
Date: 25/06/2017
On the evening of June 21, 2017, a few days before the release of this article, Wassily Kandinsky’s “BILD MIT WEISSEN LINIEN (PAINTING WITH WHITE LINES) ” (1913) led the Sotheby’s auction at £33,008,75.
Many individuals do not understand the idea of abstract painting or how an artist’s work can be considered priceless, often believing it to be the irrational behaviour of the art market. Nonetheless, this article does not aim to analyse the reasoning behind the auctioning of these paintings in respect to social and economic factors but to explore the “the dialogue between the past and future.”
Like many artist, Kandinsky would have never though that his artworks would be priceless. If Kandinsky had painted professionally with the goal of feeding his family, the artwork “White Lines” which highlights the peak of his careers would, have never been produced.
To interpret the meaning of abstract art we must explore the differences between a master’s and a child’s abstract work. Abstract art can be interpreted as dialogue not only through age but across time and space. In this article, all children’s works are completely original.
Elina – 11 years old
Suzane – 9 years old
Joshua – 6 years old
Kayla – 7 years old
Isabel NG – 10 years old
Amy Farah – 10 years old
Annie believes that in the language of art, abstract is the closest form of art to the human soul. Human beings, from the beginning of our time, are given five senses to interact with the world around us and to grow with it. It is this contact with the world that forms a definite and tangible understanding within ourselves. And of course, it is a journey of growth and progress. Yet, from another perspective it can be viewed as a cage bounding human life. Through the naked eye, we view the world to its exact size and standard for our hearts and minds, forming a constricted view of reality. Kandinsky is one of the first painters to express his unique spiritual language in the Western Society, and Annie believes this to be a thought beyond the ages. However, it is difficult to understand the idea of abstract art with our already established concepts of reality, so how can we communicate through time?
Whether an artist or physicist, their love for innovation often erases their lifetime worth of knowledge causing them to reestablish their world views and to produce art through their journey of change and newfound harvest. This concept reflects that of an ancient Chinese philosophy: an emptied cup can always be refilled with fresh water. If you constantly follow the footsteps of predecessors, then there will never be art movement or technological revolutions. These changes are closely related to the historical background of the eras in which artist were born.
Firstly, in the case of Kandinsky, who grew up with strong interest in art, music and science, gave up his position as a legal professor to pursue art. His earliest paintings embraced various stages of impressionism and Art Nouveau Decoration. He gained inspiration from concepts of new Impressionism, Symbolism, Fauvism, and Cubism. Kandinsky’s paintings displays various colours and lines that focus on their relationship to the subject of his paintings. Kandinsky’s love of music, transitional cultures and the unknown fuelled his imagination. His paintings demonstrate the concepts of the universe through stars and deep blue colours as he believed colour to be the language of music and all unknown objects.
Wassily Kandinsky
The mysteries of artist during their times and the mysteries that are explored in a child’s mind are completely different. Kandinsky’s paintings are inclusive of the shadows of fairytales and folklore, as wells as the dedication to the truth through science. Incidentally, the forefront of his era is defined through scientific break throughs. These included the Quantum Theory in 1900, which continued to be perfected during the following 20 years; Einstein’s theories of relativity and general relativity. If historians were able to see the parallel lines between art and science through history, then their close relationship would clearly be evident. As per Annie’s discussion about impressionism and technology having an indirect influence on the birth of impressionist art, during Kandinsky’s era, physics and art were also influencers to an unexpected abstract concept. If everyone had a small amount of knowledge on The Theory of Relativity involving time and space, and quantum mechanics that deals with interaction on the level of subatomic particles, then we would understand that the abstract ideas involved in physics is no different to the abstract ideas of these works of art.
Before enjoying the works of the children, Annie would like to introduce the abstract thinking of physics and mathematics as these theories are closely related to abstract art.
Schrödinger’s cat
Erwin Schrödinger is a renowned physicist and one of the founders of quantum mechanics. His thought experiment, commonly known as Schrödinger’s cat, illustrates an idea of quantum mechanics. This thought experiment presents a scenario in which a cat is both dead and alive. With this in mind, is the world really as simple as we see it? The truth is probably vastly different … (This figure is only based on the idea of the experiment and does not represent Schrödinger’s cat)
To the contemporary world through the internet we are able to easily find detailed interpretations of abstract art, but do we really understand the artworks?
For instance, if a two-year-old child spent hundreds of days of careful observation to produce a painting of a single match, the child has theoretically produced an abstract summary. For a newborn baby to complete this task, we would observe their work as only simple lines and frames, while some may depict it as not being good enough.
The word Abstraction is often associated with the essence of meaning, and is the kind of essence passed through the tedious appearance of retention. In university, those who learn to write essays recall that the beginning of the paper must have an “abstract.” In fact, this “abstract” is a key overview of the entire article. Therefore, the word “abstract” may not be so mysterious, however the different ways in which it is used in various cultural circles alienates us from this word. Unknown to us, we may be find our lives filled with “abstract.” Now, stepping back to view a simple child’s panting we may realise that each stroke sums up their individual feelings.
The so-called abstraction, in simple terms, is a kind of human nature focusing on the extraction of essential attributes which can be processed through many other means. For instance, an apple plus an apple gives 2 apples; 1 kilo of water plus 1 kilo of water equals 2 kilos of water; 1+1=2. The essence of this law of operations does not change because the subject is an apple, water or even invisible, when we take the object out it simple becomes maths. Now you can understand why the invention of the figure 0 can be considered one of the greatest inventions in the history of human development, because when it is too abstract, it becomes nothing!
It can be seen that abstract in reality is very close to us, and we constantly use abstract features in various forms in our daily lives. When we buy food in the supermarket we are in fact using a form of abstract. When we describe a person’s characteristics, we use abstract, as we are extracting human emotions like greed, hatred, jealousy, which are intangible. There are countless examples of abstract in our world today, consisting of “abstract” components. However in the accumulation of knowledge in the contemporary world, we are familiar with abstract terms, but no longer think of them to be “abstract”
So what about art? Tens of thousands of years ago, ancestors and distant relatives begun to paint on cave walls through ancient Greece, Rome and the Renaissance.
With the continuous development of technology, techniques in paintings have also continued to develop. As the development of technology began, a variety of colours were developed and due to the revival of ancient Greek geometry, improved theoretical perspectives can now be applied. Yet despite all this, mankind continues to use stone walls and canvases to reflect what the eyes see in the world. What kind of people we should be, what kind of animal should be, what kind of pastoral we should be and what should the mountain should be is actually in our constant observation of the world when printed into our minds. But is art just that? Is the pursuit of beauty only to copy the world we live in? Where are our human senses? Where is our heart? When we meet a person for the first time, we instantly judge their beauty, but through what ability? Of course some people think this ability is acquired. According to recent studies, newborn babies can distinguish a persons looks to be beautiful or ugly, thus making decisions. It can be seen through the pursuit of things, in addition to our acquired cultural tendencies, that there is a large part of human nature in our genes and souls. These things do not need to be beautiful sceneries, flower or people, but may be graphics consisting of colours, permutations and even concepts that cannot be described. Abstract art is formed through abandoning the direct description of the real world, pursuing the expression of information hidden in the gene or soul. Through the lines, geometric shapes and colours to express these ideologies, deliberately or unintentionally, an abstract artwork is formed.
Composition VIII – Wassily Kandinsky
In the contemporary world, children grow up in the rapid development of science and technology, and use colours and lines as their language, expressing their ideas and exploration of the future. At the same time they can also create semi-abstract artworks, intentionally or unintentionally portraying the human beauty through more primitive pursuits. A baby’s sense of colour can see the shadow through the art of light, capturing today’s technological era to bring them confidence and courage. The reason why this article is titled to the dialogue between past and future is to allow us to see the similarities and differences between an artist’s abstract work and a child’s. There is no doubt that a child’s work may be considered to be childish, however we should pay attention to a child’s simplicity. Through their simplicity, the original impulses are expressed, which is more easily accessible to the blurred elements of the genes and soul. The child does not think like an artist by carefully reorganise the unique works, so through these paintings we can identify a child’s pursuit of beauty. On the other hand, an artist has become a master in the pursuit of beauty through years of accumulated experience, and as such, exploring and expressing the information collected through his works. Let us continue to appreciate these different forms of “dialogue”.
(Source: Sotheby’s)
Swiss painter Paul Kerry (a translation Clay; 1879.12 ~ 1940.6) is the twentieth century modernist style painter. He is well versed in the use of music in the form of painting. This painting was made in 1919.
Kayla – 14 years old
James Wang – 8 years old
The feeling of crossing centuries through art expressed through dialogue separated by hundreds of years can truly bring a feeling of intoxication.
Jean-Michel Basquiat (December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist. He was known as a New York graffiti artist and later became a successful performer of the 1980s. Basque’s works still have a profound influence on contemporary artists, and the value is priceless. This painting was made in 1987.
Justin Zhao – 8 years old
Amelia – 7 years old
Annie guarantees that young artists themselves have never seen the paintings by Basquiat, however similarly they both use a variety of lines.
(Source: Sotheby’s)
Metheini – 9 years old
Lucy – 4 years old
Freda Xie – 4 years old
The lines drawn by children are totally natural. Above, Lucy’s (4 years old) painting, Annie believes looks like a dog, however her mother believes it to look like a whale …
Freda Xie is a 4-year-old student, filled with self-confidence, her painting is said by some to look like a dog wearing a suit, while others see a sky with it’s mouth open to eat the baby dinosaurs. As different people see different things Annie can be so confident to say that only children show confidence in their creativity.
After comparing the works of artists and children through paintings, do you feel the impulse to explore science and unknown world? If the answer is yes, then Annie believes that at least we now understand our children, the future belongs to the children and the future of art is is reliant on children to create …
This time i have displayed various children’s original abstract works, the next few will be attached with more children’s works of different styles, together with Annie lets venture into the hearts of children …
Mengen – 8 years old
Nigel – 9 years old
Tiffany – 9 years old
Sahasra – 10 years old
James – 12 years old
Andrew Yang – 11 years old
Katie – 10 years old
Pricilia – 7 years old
Harley – 7 years old
Jerry – 7 years old
Tan – 7 years old
Eric – 7 years old
Shanon – 7 years old
Eason Fang – 7 years old
Fiona – 11 years old
Vivian – 11 years old
Iris – 8 years old
Wyett – 8 years old
Wendy – 9 years old
Vivian – 12 years old
Terence – 10 years old
Ryan – 9 years old
Miranda
Michelle – 8 years old
Max – 9 years old
Lovlle – 4 years old
Julia – 11 years old
Jean – 9 years old
Jaden – 4 years old
Isabella – 8 years old
Hanjun – 12 years old
Eric – 8 years old
Amy – 9 years old
Belinda – 6 years old
Elise – 8 years old
Elena – 9 years old
Andrew – 8 years old
Olivia – 9 years old