Abstract painting explained – Part 8

One of the most telling views of how middle-class Americans view abstract art is the illustration “The Connoisseur” by Norman Rockwell. In this illustration, we see a well-dressed man from behind as he views the artists representation of a Jackson Pollock action painting. The contrast between the realism displayed by Rockwell and the seeming puzzlement of the art patron portrayed is comical in nature, but reflects a cultural reality.

Americans, by and large, don’t get abstract art. It’s the same problem that is illustrated by the fairytale “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. Art is trendy and fashion conscious. It’s been said that the active popularity of an artist in his or her own lifetime is about four years. Before that they are unknown and after that they are has beens.But once you have reached a certain esoteric plane of culture, you don’t want to be the guy that doesn’t accept new and cutting edge art with open arms. At that point, in certain circles, you risk be labeled as a cultural neophyte, or worse as a cultural apostate. It is risky for the average art patron to state their displeasure or disgust at some niche art representations. It is even riskier for corporate or sponsors of public art to admit that they don’t readily accept everything they are offered.

That is not to say that abstract art should be dismissed. On the contrary, abstract art illustrates a natural flow of the role of the artist as the Recorder of History to the artist as Interpreter of Ideas. Before technology allowed humans to artificially record actual events using cameras, the artist served an important role as the visual record keeper of key historical events. That is why we have countless images of battles, marriages, coronations and famous people in our museums. Even in America, begun as a social order without a royal echelon, our leaders such as Washington and Lincoln were portrayed for posterity. If you jump forward to the end of the nineteenth century, you find the work of the artist becoming more personal. Instead of world events, the daily lives of average people were elevated. After the advent of Sigmund Freud’s writings on the nature of the human condition, artists went even further by attempting to capture the images of dreams, of nightmares and of emotions.

And this leads us to abstract art. It isn’t always appealing on the surface. In fact some of the earlier abstract art is deliberately repellent. Who can look at Picasso’s “Demoiselles d’Avignon” and not find