Define Abstract

[Nikon Fan]

Since this upcoming competition's theme is abstract I thought it would be interesting to see what everyone define's abstract as. This should help everyone in choosing what to photograph if they haven't done so and also to better know how to vote.

In my design class last semester the teacher define abstract as simplified realism. You can still tell what the objects are, but you may have to work at it. It seems to me that many people define abstract as what I tend to think of as nonobjective. More of a design where you cannot tell what the objects are at all...there might not even be any objects at all, lines or shapes or whatever-you get the idea. If you do a google or yahoo image search however you get the same type of pictures for both abstract and nonobjective.

So define abstract in your own personal terms. What will the your personal guidelines be for voting in the contest? And if you have examples that are good please share

 

[Meysha]

I'm very hesitant to post an answer here even before the voting's begun.
But the way I think of abstract is 'an idea seperate from an object'. Hmm don't think I explained that well.

Tell me if this is wrong, But can two people look at the same picture and one thinks that it's nonobjective and the other thinks it's abstract? ie: the person who beleives it's abstract can see ('imagine') the concept the artist was trying to portray but the other, nonobjective person just doesn't get what the artist wanted?

 

[Nikon Fan]

I don't think you're wrong at all. I think two people could see the same thing as either nonobjective or abstract, but what I'm interested in is why? Is it b/c of how they define the terms or b/c the artist didn't convey well?

If this post needs to be removed it can...I thought it would sort of help for the contest rahter than harm it. That way we know what people are looking for, and how they are choosing, and have a better understanding before we go out and shoot

 

[Matty-Bass]

I always thought abstract was just a crazy mixed up media where it was nonobjective. This thread brings a new light to that! I would define abstract as any media that requires logic to decipher it. Some works of art that are nonobjective may actually be abstract, just through someone else's eyes.

 

[Rob]

I like answers one and four out of the following, but I guess it's one of those things! Google says:

Definitions of abstract art on the Web:

[size=-1]Art that departs significantly from natural appearances. Forms are modified or changed to varying degrees in order to emphasize certain qualities or content. Recognizable references to original appearances may be slight. The term is also used to describe art that is nonrepresentational.
www.ackland.org/tours/classes/glossary.html[/size][size=-1]

Any art in which the depiction of real objects in nature has been subordinated or entirely discarded, and whose aesthetic content is expressed in formal pattern or structure of shapes, lines,and colors. Sometimes the subject is real but so stylized, blurred, repeated, or broken down into basic forms as to be unrecognizable.
www.tuhsd.k12.az.us/Mountain_Pointe_HS/art/adams/Intro_Comp_Art/artterms.html[/size][size=-1]

Any art in which real objects in nature are represented in a way that wholly or partially neglects their true appearance and expresses it in a form of sometimes unrecognizable patterns of lines, colors and shapes. View our collection of contemporary abstract paintings
www.worldimages.com/art_glossary.php[/size][size=-1]

Art in which the subject is color, line, and shape rather than recognizable forms or a picture you can identify.
www.chgs.umn.edu/Educational_Resources/Curriculum/Witness___Legacy_-_Educators__/Art_Terms/art_terms.html[/size][size=-1]

Works in which objects, people, and/or places are depicted in simplified arrangements of shapes, lines, textures, and/or colors. Abstract art may or may not bear a resemblance to its subject.
projects.edtech.sandi.net/montgomery/mysteriousmasks/art_terms.htm[/size][size=-1]

An art expression in which the artistic values reside in the forms in colors rather than in the reproduction or presentation of subject matter.
www.tvdecorators.com/infopages/dictionary.html[/size][size=-1]

A style of art that uses lines, shapes, colours and textures to depict an object without attention to depicting the object in a realistic manner. After- image
www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/docs/artsed/g8arts_ed/g8vgloae.html[/size][size=-1]

The simplification of forms. The subject may be recognisable or, in the case of pure abstraction, totally unrecognisable.
www.stgeorged.det.nsw.edu.au/creativearts/Glossary/glossary.html[/size][size=-1]

Art that presents a subjective view of the world- the artist's emotions or ideas-or art that presents line, color, or shape for its own sake.
highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072556323/student_view0/glossary.html[/size][size=-1]

An art form which is not dependent upon a fundamentally naturalistic approach to the subject matter for the expression of form, space and color.
www.liberatoreart.com/glossary.html[/size][size=-1]

Abstractionism: an abstract genre of art; artistic content depends on internal form rather than pictorial representation
www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn[/size][size=-1]

Abstract art is now generally understood to mean art that does not depict objects in the natural world, but instead uses shapes and colours in a non-representational or non-objective way. In the early 20th century, the term was more often used to describe art, such as Cubist and Futurist art, that does represent the natural world, but does so by capturing something of its immutable intrinsic qualities rather than by imitating its external appearance. See Abstraction.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_art[/size]