Abstract Art
Abstract painting is truly the externalising
in a new way, of the innermost nature of
the painter.
What is generally termed ‘abstract’ is not
to be confused with the abstraction from nature which is concerned with the visual aspect of nature and its reduction and distortion to a pictorial form; for, although abstract art has developed through this, it
has become a construction or concretion coming from within. The abstract painting
is a result of a creative process exactly the opposite to abstraction.
Just as an idea can be given a form so can form be given a meaning. By taking the severest form and developing it according to a strict rule, the painter can fill it with significance within the limitations imposed.
Such limitations of form have been constantly used in poetry and music.
The square, the circle, the triangle, etc., are primary elements in the vocabulary of form, not ends in themselves. In a rigorous form
of art which uses as figures such formal elements, a complete pictorial expression
can be achieved.
If in the same work among similar forms the shape of one is changed to give some slight variation, immediately the identity of the one is changed and the rest acquire new meaning.
Proportion and analogy are at the base of such a pictorial architecture. The painting grows according to these laws and these have their counterpart in the laws of nature. Not the painting which imitates the illusory and transient aspects of nature, but which
copies nature in the laws of its activities.
Through such an analogy of nature and through its aspirations towards music, abstract painting fulfils a spiritual necessity. The painter creates towards a spiritual harmony using the most fundamental means. So that height and depth, the broad and the moving, the curved and the straight, which are the stuff of man’s existence, are used to communicate to man not through a unique object.
Abstract art is truly objective not ‘non-objective’. The object which is created is real and not illusional in that it sets out to represent no object outside the canvas, but to contain within itself the force of its own nature. And the painter seeks to be wholly intelligible in thus objectifying his subjective self. He attempts to create a universal language as against a private language.
Heroic efforts have been made towards the creation of this language. Heroic efforts are still being made and will continue to be made in future. For the abstract art of which I write, far from being an end, is a beginning. Its very nature, that of growing from within outwards, opens up a vast field for discovery. Nor do rigorous laws impede its development; on the contrary they are an assurance of variety.
Kenneth Martin, 1951
Victor Pasmore
Square Motif: Green and Lilac, oil on panel
Composition 1953, oil on canvas
1958-1992, oil on canvas