Abstractionin
A
Modern
Painting
Comparison
by I RVING
LAVIN,
Department
of Art, VassarCollege
Among the currentsof contemporarypainting
few people would fail to agree that the major
one, at leastfromthe quantitativepoint of view,
is "abstraction."The word itself is perhapsthe
most hotly debated one in the terminologyof
modernart. To the initiated, abstractionis an
articleof faith, even a way of life, while to most
laymen and many professionalsas well, it is
anathema,signifyingthe final alienationof the
artistfromthe broadmassesof societywithwhich
artistsof earlierperiodswere, supposedly,much
more in tune.
It is not unusual for a style of painting, or
rathera name for a style, to incite such widely
opposedreactions,but it is remarkablethat in
this case the polemicshave lasted so long. The
usual cycle is that a name is first applied derogatorilyto an innovationthat runscounterto
commonlyacceptedvalues.Then, aftera period
of subversiveinfiltration,common values are
themselvesreorientedto accept,even to admire,
the innovation.Finallythe name for it becomes
virtuallyneutral.Few people today hate or admire all baroque art on principle, merely because it is baroque.Some baroqueart we like,
some we dislike.But the term itselfis no longer
"charged,"eitherpositivelyor negatively.
Perhaps "abstraction"will follow the same
line of evolution;but thus far it has not. This is
rathercurious,for if we date the beginningsof
modernabstractart to the emergenceof cubism,
then the style has been with us for more than
half a century. And in this day of mass communicationsome explanationis requiredfor the
This paperwas firstpresentedin jruneI960,
a gatheringof alumnaeat VassarCollege.
before
fact that we, meaning society in general, still
have not been able to come to terms with abstraction,either by rejectingor acceptingit.
Many supportersof abstractionarguethat the
fault (if fault it is) lies with the public. Modern
man, especiallyin America,is so concernedwith
the material,the physical,aspectsof life that he
cannot understandand thereforecannot abide
a point of view that regardsa paintingas something more or at least somethingother than a
two-dimensionalcounterfeitof the visibleworld.
Othersclaimthat it isjust a matterof time:after
centuriesof naturalismpeople requirea period
of "adjustment"to get used to abstract art.
There is probablya good deal of truth in both
these arguments,but they are really questions
for the sociologist.In any case I do not feel they
can give the whole answer,for it is also possible
that there is somethingabout abstractart itself
that makesit stick continuallyin the throat as
societytriesto swallowit.
I do not believe this somethingto be the fact
Therehavebeenmanyperiods
of its abstractness.
in whichabstractionin one formor anotherwas
consideredan entirelyvalid artisticidiom. And
I feel that if abstractionhad stoppedwith the
variousphasesof cubism,as it did in the case of
Picasso,whomeven the man on the streettoday
regardsas an old master, the educated public
would certainlyby now have digestedit.
This may lead us to the heart of the matter.
Reproducedin Figure I iS a painting by the
Italian-bornAmericanartistJosephStella,done
in I9I4. Figure2 representsa canvasby one of
the prime movers of contemporaryAmerican
abstraction,Jackson Pollock, dated I gso. In
certainrespectsthesetwo worksare remarkably
166
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alike. Both are very large the Stella over six
feet high, the Pollock more than eight feet high
and seventeen feet wide. Both seem entirely abstract, that is, nonrepresentational. Both artists
covered the entire canvas with a homogeneous
design that does not involve a normal spatial recession. Both used strong pure colors that are distributed more or less evenly throughout. Clearly,
then, the two works have many things in common. And if one were to consider only the similarities it would be all the more remarkable that
the thirty-six intervening years have not been
long enough for people to make their peace with
this kind of painting.
But the similarities are actually quite superfic.ial.Thework by Stella consistsof a large number
of small geometric shapes whose visual eSect is
extremely ambiguous. We can read them as all
being flat on the surface in which case the painting becomes a huge, brightly colored jigsaw
puzzle. Or we can read them as if they were all
projecting into space at different angles, like
splinters of glass, absorbing or reflecting light in
diSerent intensities and of diSerent colors. In
that case, the painting reads as though we were
looking out on a scene through a sheet of glass
that has been systematically worked over by a
steam roller. The impression is intensified by the
fact that the colors and shapes are not entirely
uniform. The colors at the bottom are darker
and more saturated than those at the middle and
top. In the center of the composition there is an
area in which the colors are lightest of all. And
running diagonally are a number of lines that
converge and diverge in such a way that again
we can read them on the surface, but also as
suggestive of space and depth like the orthogonals in a perspective drawing. This view of the
painting is confirmed by the fact that it is entitled Spring. The artist has given a geometricized rendering of a spring landscape in which
light, bouncing oS and passing through objects,
is broken up into a kaleidoscopic and scintillating
array. It is, in a word, a cubist analysis of a visual
phenomenon. By reducing each shape and color
to its simplest terms the artist has captured and
made permanent a transitory visual experience
without, however, producing a two-dimensional
counterfeit of it in the impressionist sense.
Stella (z880-sg46),
Fig. S . Spring,I9I4, byffoseS?h
American
Yale UniversityArt Gallery
So far so good. A systematic,logical analysis
has takenplace which, like the proofof the Pythagoreantheorem,is very beautifulwhen you
think about it, but not really very difEcultto
follow once you understandthe problem.This
167
is why I said that if abstractionhad gone no
furtherthan cubism,people by now would have
no troubleappreciatingit.
In the Pollock,by contrast,thereare no simple
shapesat all, and certainlyno direct reference
to nature, even in the highly distortedsensewe
found in the Stella. What is more, there is no
systematicanalysisof a visual experienceor, for
that matter, any other kind of experience.On
the contrary, we feel that systematicanalysis
was the farthestthing fromthe artist'smind. He
was painting,as it were, entirelyon impulse.
Takinga big brushor stick (whichin addition
to knives, trowels, and so on, he increasingly
preferred to more orthodox implements), he
loaded it with beige paint and slashedit on the
canvas.The arrangementof these slashesseems
entirelyhaphazard;yet they are very consistent
and differentfromthe otherareasof paint. They
tend to be broad, not thin. They tend to be
straight,not curved.They tend to meet in sharp
angles,like collidingcomets.They are placed at
almost but not quite regularintervals,so that
they serve to punctuate the space, as a syncopated drumbeatmight punctuatea continuous
melodyabove it.
Alternatively, Pollock took a stick loaded
heavily with black. But instead of slashing,he
swung it about above the canvas, throwingoS
thin streamsof paint that flow continuouslyin
sweeping curves. The lines weave round and
about and in and out, so that whereverthe eye
lightsit is caughtup in the same swiftpath that
Pollock'sbody followed.
Anotherstickhe quicklyjerkedat the canvas,
pepperingthe surfacewith tiny dots of paint.
This he did severaltimeswith black,brown,and
white. Because of their diSerent sizes, colors,
and spacing,someof the dotsseemfarawaywhile
othersseemquitenear;someseemdead and lifeless, othersbrightand shimmering.Again without paintingaway the canvaswith an illusionof
reality, Pollock created a vast space that gives
this passionate and utterly private drama a
cosmicsetting.
Althoughhe used five or six colors, the overall tonalityof the paintingis brown;it is a brown
mood. And of the elements of paint, whether
lines, dots, or slashes,none stands out for very
long. Our eye picks out first one, then another,
168
in a never-endingseriesin which the intervals
consistnot only of space, the distancefrom one
to the next, but also of time, the time it required
for the artist to make them and for our eye to
movefromone to the next. Whatwith the brown
mood and this space-timesequence,I think we
can understandthe painting'sseeminglyenigmatic title, Autumn Rhythm. It too is a landscape, and a landscapeat a particularseason.
But of courseit is a very diSerentsort of landscapefromStella's.Stella analyzedwhat he saw
whichafterall is whatpaintershad beendoing
for centuries.Pollock did at once a great deal
less and a great deal more: he recordedonly
what he felt.
This requiresa certainqualification,however.
To say that Pollock recordedwhat he felt implies that firsthe felt somethingand then he put
it downon canvas;it impliesa periodof analysis.
But there was no such period, at least not in
theory. Discountinginterruptionsfor sleeping,
eating, or what have you, it may have taken
Pollock, let's say, six hours of actual painting
time to executethispicture.And if we continued
our explorationof it we could, indeedwe would
almostbe forcedto, reconstructeach splashand
slash. It would also take us about six hours, in
the course of which we would in a sense have
re-experiencedevery act and hence every impulse that producedthe painting.
What we are experiencing,therefore,is not
Pollock'sreactionto a scene viewed or an emotion felt some time ago, but the very act of creation. Needlessto say, this is a degreeof audience
participationthat had never even been dreamt
of before.And in the face of this achievementI
am sure you will agree that the fact that the
paintingseemsby its title to have somethingto
do with an autumnlandscapeis all but inconsequential,if not actuallyaccidental.It wouldnot
surpriseme in the least to learn that Pollock
named this picture after it was finished. Few
of his paintingsat thisperiodhave suchnaturalistic titles;mostlytheyhavenamessuchas Three,
or Number28, or the like. In a work by Stella
a reference to nature is absolutely essential;
that is his whole point. But in Pollock such a
referenceis a downrighthindrance.The more
natureenters,the more descriptionand analysis
are required,hence the furtherremovedyou are
from the emotion that producedthe painting.
One must not ask what emotion the picture
is describing;it is itself an emotionthat we can
discoveronly by havingit ourselves,by participatingin the pictureto the fullestextent.Pollock
is not after "fear" or "love" or "anger," but
ratherthat basicpsychicenergyin all of us that
may take the form of diSerent emotionsunder
diSerent circumstances.He may have painted
in anger,and it may be an "angry"picture;but
it is not a pictureof anger.
This total absence of naturalismeither in a
physicalor emotionalsensebringsus to the matter of technique.Since Stella was interestedin
presentinga certain analysisof nature, he had
carefullyto draw each shapeand place it in its
properpositionin orderto makeit representhis
analysis.But by the same token, the more care
he lavisheclon each shapeand color,the further
he got from the initial creativeimpulsethat is,
after all, the origin of all art. Pollock, on the
other hand, wanted to make the paint on the
canvasfunctionnot as a descriptionof anything,
but as the instantaneousvisual expressionof
his impulse.This he accomplished,forhis splashing and slashing and dripping technique not
only allowsbut demandsthat we ourselvesduplicate his creativeprocess.
Yet, one may say, any child can splashpaint
on a canvas.Whereis that elementof controlby
which we distinguishart from mere accidentor
whimsy, by which the raw creative impulse is
fashionedinto communication?It is true that
once the splatterof paint left his stick, Pollock
could no longercontrolit. But he did determine
the splatter'sdirectionand angle of impact,and
so controlledits generalsize and pattern.This
seemspreciouslittle, but thus far the difference
from traditionalpainting is only a matter of
degree, or rather of scale. In paintingsby the
early Flemish masterssuch as Jan van Eyck,
brushescontaininga singlehairwere oftenused.
This is the ultimateof control,and theirpictures
were painted with the tips of the fingers,from
very closeup: often,certainly,underthe magnifying glass.The artistall but lost himselfin the
myriad details of nature. Rembrandt,on the
other hand, sometimesused brushesan inch or
more wide. He painted his pictures at arm's
length. And he had far less control than did
Van Eyck.He could establisha generalpattern
with the brush,but he could no longermanipulate each individualbristle,and his paintingsare
farlessrealistic.At the sametime it is interesting
to recall that we often speak of Rembrandt's
brushworkas his "artistichandwriting,"thereby
implyingthat,ratherthanlosinghimself,he was
expressinghis individualitythrough his technique. Most of us do have a strongfeeling for
Rembrandt'sown intimatepersonality.Pollock
got even fartheraway from the canvas, and he
no longerpaintedwith his arm.He paintedwith
his whole body which, incidentally, is one
reasonmany of his canvasesare so big.
The really fundamentaldiSerence between
Pollockand Rembrandt,however,is not just a
matterof degreeor scale, nor of technique.For
althoughto a lesserextentthanVan Eyck,Rembrandt too was still sacrificinghimself to the
details. When we look at one of his paintings,
what we see in the first instance is a Biblical
scene,or a landscape,or the face of Rembrandt.
In the case of Pollock, what we see is Pollock
himself nothing more, nothing less. In contrastto Rembrandt,Pollockwasno longerpainting nature;we call his art, for want of a better
word, abstract.
All this, I hope, helps answer the original
questionwhy abstraction,introducedover fifty
years ago, is still a bone of contention.Here it
must be emphasizedthat we have dealt with
only one really recent abstract painting, and
even that one is a decadeold. But that is exactly
my point: abstractart has continuedto evolve.
In the case of Pollockand others,it is no longer
"abstract"in the originalsense of the term. It
has been transformedfrom a means of analysis
into a means of expression.As a means of expression,no less than as a means of analysis,it
can be a sharper,moresensitive,and morepenetrating instrumentthan traditionalart. It has
had to upset traditionalconceptsof order and
discipline,but as a result it can expose depths
and areasof feelingthat many people are reluctant to recognize in themselves.Part of the
reason abstractart continuesto be a problem,
I believe, is that it has gained new power to
disturband to challengeus.
169
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