"There are no rules in art". This is a quote from Wassily Kandinsky, the recognized father of modern abstract painting. I beg to differ with Kandinsky. In looking at his body of work from the beginning of his painting career, you can clearly see that at the beginning he most definitely followed the rules of Western Art. He created many fairly conventional paintings that met the traditional rules of good painting. As he progressed, he began to break the rules, but not all of them. He would often throw away one rule, but follow others and produce an intriguing painting that was totally original. The job of the artist is to thoroughly know the rules, so that he or she can consciously decide which to keep and which to break to create an original, personal statement.
The artist must have the ability to vary from the rules but still create an abstract painting that reaches the soul of the viewer. An analogy to this statement can be seen in the sport and art of figure skating. The skater must follow rules guided by gravity and her anatomy's ability to perform specific moves. However, each skater puts her own unique style into those moves, making her performance a personal and unique work of art. As a viewer of figure skating, it is helpful to know the rules so that you can enjoy the uniqueness of an individual skater's application of those rules and to appreciate it when she makes changes to elevate her performance to the level of art. In viewing abstract paintings, it is also important to know the rules so that you can appreciate an artist's creative variations from the accepted rules.
It is important to remember that we are talking about Western Art. If you were to look at art from another culture, you would need to learn a completely different set of rules. I had the experience of working on a piece of art based on Northwestern Indian art. I had to study the principals of the artistic culture of the Indians in order to do justice to my work based on their art. I came to appreciate the beauty of their work and to understand how different the principles of their designs are from those that I have been trained to follow. We are going to start looking at the rules of Western Art. They are called the Principles and Elements of Design and there are a total of fifteen of them.
The first and foremost rule is that of Unity. A piece of art must stand alone and not depend on any of its surroundings to make its statement. We put a frame around our art work to create a separation of the piece from the rest of the world. An abstract painting looks very different when it lacks a frame. In critiquing art, most art instructors put a mat around the art to create that separation before looking at the work. When the piece is matted and framed, you can more clearly see if it holds together as one entity. The concept of unity describes not only the separation of the work of art from its environment but also the relationship between the individual parts of the piece and the whole composition. Unity refers to a sense that everything in a piece of work belongs there, and makes a whole piece. The way to judge that as a viewer is to let your eyes wander over the piece and note the path your eyes follow. Do your eyes wander out of the picture? Do they follow a path around the picture and return to a certain spot? Are they drawn to one particular point? What draws your interest? These are questions that only you as the viewer can answer. An effective artist will manipulate the path your eyes take through the painting: keeping your interest, not boring you, giving you delightful areas to explore. If an abstract painting is successful, you should have a feeling of harmony between all parts of the artwork creating a sense of completeness. Take some time to look at some paintings to see where your eyes take you. I invite you to look at both traditional and abstract paintings on my website: http://www.triciastudio.com. Some may successfully exhibit a sense of unity. You be the judge.
In my next article, Understanding Abstract Paintings - Part VI, we will explore the principle of Balance.
If you would like to see examples of my abstract and representational artwork, go to http://www.triciastudio.com
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