Why are some artists abstract

[cate]

Artist meaning painter, writer, animator, etc.
Many pieces of art are abstract and have an unclear meaning/question/point, and are purposefully unexplained. Why?
Keeping the original point abstract makes the entire piece meaningless; the art may as well have never existed.
But if the artist chose to communicate, then they're letting the viewer investigate and think about a new interesting thought/idea/argument.

I assume many people would respond with "lots of art is left abstract because it makes each individual viewer think deeply about something - which is what art is supposed to do; envoke broadly brain activity"

And I think this is a bad answer/idea because art is supposed to be a way for the artist to communicate to the viewer, whether it be a emotion, question, political issue, etc. And having bad communication means that it is impossible for the viewer to interpret the message; making the message entirely meaningless! It may aswell have never been sent.

Coming from this video by the way, an animation that explores questions regarding permonance, identity, role, and probably other fancy schmancy stuff

[Dracoco OwO]

Because getting a message is more compelling than speaking of it directly, it also give an opportunity for you to have your own opinion on the subject and imagine something of it i suppose.

[Devsman]

My opinion on abstract art did a total 180 when I saw a piece titled Gravity's Rainbow. It was a statement about mathematics, signals and chaos theory, and since that much is so clear that even I was able to pick up on it, I stood there and analyzed it a long time, trying to figure out what kind of signal I was looking at. I'm kinda dense when it comes to these things, so it took me weeks to come to the conclusion that that was the point. It wasn't trying to tell me anything in particular, but to make me think about its form and the context it was directing me to.

Until then I always assumed abstract art was pretty much just doodling. Not, like you say, that the meaning is obscured, but rather that there really wasn't one.

But now I think it's more accurate to say that abstract art comes from a place of inquiry rather than statement.

And I know how ridiculous that sounds, like I'm trying to smoke a pipe and rock a monocle but whatever, I couldn't really word it any better.

[cate]

After some research, it's clear art is interpretted many different ways. This means when people observe something, they will think differently/uniquely of it.
And I hate that. Because it means art is meaningless, because it is impossible for it to have a message. So abstract art to me is an evolution of being pretentious. It is beyond that. Some cocky people thinking they're so smart making literally meaningless stuff.
Part of the reason I hate this answer so much is because I'm autistic, and some autistic people supposedly have a much more structured mindset, which is to say they're only really interested in facts, information, that sort of stuff. So for example autistic people might trend to being emotionally dead when learning about war for example, because in their mindset/ideaology, war is just because it has justified reasoning for it. And therefore, war = not bad.

Edit, and so I guess that people like me, who'd think in part thanks to autism; abstract art has zero information/meaning/message. It is useless. Artists making it, and the people trying to make meaning of something meaningless, are pretentious.

Originally posted by Dracoco OwO:

Because getting a message is more compelling than speaking of it directly, it also give an opportunity for you to have your own opinion on the subject and imagine something of it i suppose.

I hate that, because that means that art (or some art, since "art" is so bloody broad), is designed not to communicate; designed to not have a message; designed to be completely meaningless. My thinking is you're wasting everyone's time with giving a meaningless message. Like for example, some prankster puts some flying saucer/ufo looking thing at your lawn. You're a 6y.o negligent kid, so you pick up the saucer and think aliens are real. This happened because you received an abstract, meaningless message. And as a result, you have not gained anything. If anything you've lost stuff (like time, effort spent thinking about it, etc). The trickster that put the saucer there is an artist, because they sent a broad message. (And by the way this is a valid example; if some guy in real life went putting soda can fortresses for example by people's houses, he'd be considered an artist.)

[刘鹏辉 15947033800]

i think the beauty in abstract is in derailing, from you know, reality.

[cate]

Originally posted by Devsman:

...
But now I think it's more accurate to say that abstract art comes from a place of inquiry rather than statement.

I think I get that, like for example when a group of people observe modern abstract art like external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.fineartamerica.com%2Fimages-medium-large%2F2-abstract-circle-art-david-pyatt.jpg&f=1&nofb=1 , they stop and think about what's special about this placement of geometry, and they think about it until they reach a conclusion, perhaps "that art was astonishing to me because it was so pure and raw; the most basic shapes in the universe, illustrating the impossible greatness and vastness of our universe", or something. And that deep thinking about such an intriguing and rich artpiece, is the entire point of art.
I don't know why, but I just dislike that. That an artist can make something, some question, which even they don't know the answer, and then publish it -- as though that idea the artist had, ever had any ounce of meaning.

[cate]

Originally posted by 刘鹏辉 15947033800:

i think the beauty in abstract is in derailing, from you know, reality.

imo if derailing from reality is beautiful, well you should then convey that emotion in a message. a convenient way to do that might be to create a short geometric animation, where say someone is walking their dog, when the dog stops being animated, the person's legs as well don't animate when they walk past the dog, then stuff like wind and time stop working, then you zoom out, see earth stop spinning, you then see the galaxy, then milky way, then "universe", and it breaks in the same way the dog did - then you get some intense morse code like sound.
Y'know, attempt to convey that beautiful emotion of derailing from reality
... rather than publish something MEANINGLESS which CANT give MEANING or EMOTION because it has NO MESSAGE

[Ⓥenom Ⓢnake 🐍]

Abstract leaves the meaning of the work open to interpretation. It allows the observer to contemplate the piece from their own experience and understanding. I opens the mind and leads to creative thinking.

Far more impressive than landscapes or bowls of fruit.

[cate]

Originally posted by ☠️ Marshall Mason ☠:

Abstract leaves the meaning of the work open to interpretation. It allows the observer to contemplate the piece from their own experience and understanding. I opens the mind and leads to creative thinking.

Far more impressive than landscapes or bowls of fruit.

Ok I guess that's the answer, but I just really hate that. Don't really know why. Probably linked to my autism, as I've explained above

[sfnhltb]

There are a bunch of variants of the phrase, "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." - by extension I think if the intended meaning of a piece of art, book, movie, piece of music or whatever are explicit they are often forgotten or have little impact, if even a relatively minimal amount effort or thought are required to deduce them they are usually correspondingly much more impactful and memorable.

[Holografix]

I disagree with the marked answer as all art is open to interpretation.

For example, bowls of fruit are called Still Life and often depict scenes of Memento Mori. Memento Mori is an artistic or symbolic reminder of the inevitability of death. Still Life is life 'frozen in time' to remind us that life eventually ends.

Interpretation doesn't render an artwork meaningless.

[cate]

Originally posted by sfnhltb:

There are a bunch of variants of the phrase, "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." - by extension I think if the intended meaning of a piece of art, book, movie, piece of music or whatever are explicit they are often forgotten or have little impact, if even a relatively minimal amount effort or thought are required to deduce them they are usually correspondingly much more impactful and memorable.

Making communication difficult to understand only makes the message more memorable because you had to spend a bloody hour decoding the damn thing.
If the sender is actually interested in talking/communicating, they'll give their message in a clear and concise manner, rather than just sounding bloody pretentious and smart.
Regarding impact; it remains same whether you understood it the first time, or you understood it after an hour of thinking. The person will remember it and its special impact, based on how interested they are in it - not in how bloody convoluted and incoherent it is.

[Holografix]

Originally posted by cate:

If the sender is actually interested in talking/communicating, they'll give their message in a clear and concise manner, rather than just sounding bloody pretentious and smart.

No.

[Holografix]

Originally posted by cate:

abstract art has zero information/meaning/message. It is useless. Artists making it, and the people trying to make meaning of something meaningless, are pretentious.

No.

[cate]

Originally posted by Holografix:

I disagree with the marked answer as all art is open to interpretation.

For example, bowls of fruit are called Still Life and often depict scenes of Memento Mori. Memento Mori is an artistic or symbolic reminder of the inevitability of death. Still Life is life 'frozen in time' to remind us that life eventually ends.

That just goes to show the problem with abstract art - you see bowls of fruit (or know of it, because you probably researched it), and think of it as an illustration of as you say, the inevitability of death. Yet the other guy sees the bowls of fruit artwork as just some realistic artwork. You can't agree on what the bowls of fruit //IS// because it's message is abstract, hidden, undefined.

[Sir Dookface McFerretballs]

Originally posted by cate:

Artist meaning painter, writer, animator, etc.
Many pieces of art are abstract and have an unclear meaning/question/point, and are purposefully unexplained. Why?
Keeping the original point abstract makes the entire piece meaningless; the art may as well have never existed.
But if the artist chose to communicate, then they're letting the viewer investigate and think about a new interesting thought/idea/argument.

I assume many people would respond with "lots of art is left abstract because it makes each individual viewer think deeply about something - which is what art is supposed to do; envoke broadly brain activity"

And I think this is a bad answer/idea because art is supposed to be a way for the artist to communicate to the viewer, whether it be a emotion, question, political issue, etc. And having bad communication means that it is impossible for the viewer to interpret the message; making the message entirely meaningless! It may aswell have never been sent.

Coming from this video by the way, an animation that explores questions regarding permonance, identity, role, and probably other fancy schmancy stuff

It all depends on what "abstract" means in here.

If we are talking a single one inch red dot on a 20 foot canvas being called "Modern Period", or literal monkey thrown on canvas with water balloons being called "Driving a 1978 Diesel Volvo", or a banana taped to a wall with duct tape, or a literal artists "paint splatter sheet", or literal scribbles, or random trash superglued onto a wall...

That isn't art, it is someone trolling rich people and fart sniffing hipsters.

Sure people can interpret it whatever way they want, I usually interpret it as lazy and random.

There can be some nice stuff too... But much like indie games for every one "good" one there are 1000 more that are complete garbage.