“The creation of art is just as it is, before destroyed. When it is destroyed, the destruction is not another creation because creation cannot follow a domino effect without it becoming mass production. A routine, according to a domino effect, is therefore not creative. Creativity is spontaneous inspiration, the effect of lust, or the willingness to create without desire for its purpose or utility. Creation simply exists, not to any specific end, though will create of its own without the routine-driven energies that drive what repetition does, being to deaden meaning.”
– Modern Romanticism
What gets destroyed? Meaning. Meaning is non-existent with death, because to the grieving individual lost without meaning for what had existed, is ignorant to know that love does not die, does not lose all meaning. In life, there is truth. In death, there seems for grieving individuals the absence of all meaning. That is depression.
It is because of loss that within all things dark, void, or non-existent of truth, there is death, though also the denial for what does not die. Love cannot die, because memories are unable to meet death at their end. Then, why does an artist’s works live on, when death meets the life of the artist? That is because of the presence of love given to what goes on, being the works that like children to a mother, are there to carry the flame of memory. When death is what corrupts the grieving individual’s heart to see no meaning in life, there is meant to be understanding to the perfection of love in how it perfects meaning. We cannot destroy love, cannot declare God to be truly dead, without sheer denial in question to the meaning of life.
Life holds meaning. Death lacks all meaning in its place of absence. If art can be abstract, then abstraction is a murderer. If someone can believe the mass-produced artwork is meaningful, then they’ve contradicted themselves on their supposed understandings of art. Art is, not ever something specific, though is. Art simply is, because it cannot be subjective. Objective, as art is, to meanings that are not specific, because specifics follow the numerical. If a numerical is ever meaningful, then we have found meaning in death.
If there is meaning in death, then we can state to the grieving individual to remain in grief, out of our cruelty within such words, because that is same to believe they should find healing within their depression. As one cannot fell a building without stating the building was once created, the felled building is an example of chaos. Who says to the earthquake that destroys a village that what is viewed of suffering and loss of shelter is something beautiful and meant to be admired? In the belief that a person who is homeless is beautiful, as homeless, is perhaps to mean that their conditions of life should never be improved. This person, in viewing death or loss or poverty to be beautiful would not ever lift a finger to aid those in distress.
Chaos is not the creation, as abstraction is not. Abstraction or chaos is the absence of order, as things such as order, life, or truth are creations. Life depicts itself as truthful, for every individual is able to create their own stories to tell out of experiences. If abstract art is ever truthful, then what was created to begin with? As in, what of abstract art is the creation, if its intention is to break the rules and boundaries of art? And if those boundaries are broken without the rules being first learned, then what has been broken? In the same sense, can a building be destroyed before it was created? It cannot. Since it cannot, then no abstraction can be itself without the acknowledgement that life, truth, and all manner of creation is being destroyed. This is the same mindset as someone who would find a bloodbath or bloody massacre to be beautiful, with the luxury of not knowing those who died. It is that luxury, because those who know the pain of loss are those who crave to understand what is still meaningful.
Modern Romanticism 
Actually, um, abstraction in many cases is just moving away from strict adherence to physical appearance and towards design, which has its own order and aesthetics to it, just as instrumental music has its own inner logic.
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Did not modern abstraction begin with the following to Picasso, who said, “Learn the rules like a professional, so that you can break them like an artist?”
What rules are abstract artists breaking, if they haven’t learned the rules first? Just what is being broken, if things are simply being made up from nothingness? At the same time, can a building be destroyed before it was built?
To further examples… can a heart be stopped, before it was developed in the mother’s womb? Can a marriage be ruined, before the relationship was even unified in the first place?
If, like you say it is in those many cases, abstraction is moving away from physical appearance towards design, then this is like regressing a structure back to its blueprint. If that’s the case, then you are not creating anything. You merely have gone backwards with the steps that would lead towards actual creation if you kept following them. As in, you’ve gone from the complete picture to a mere piece of the entirety. Or you have gone from the finalization to the rough draft. Or you have gone from the painted canvas back to the sketch.
This is why I said that abstract art is the “destruction of art”, because it destroys art, rather than creates anything that art is. Because if you, or anyone else, can readily state that abstract art is art, then I will begin to believe that you and other such people are also in the belief that someone dead is the same as someone living.
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Abstraction surely started at least with Cezanne. Picasso meant to learn the rules of how to draw/paint realistically. There are other ways to paint other than realistically.
Ah, you mean “non-representational” artists. A lot of them, such as Mondrian, started off working realistically. In more recent times, sure, a lot of artists probably just skip leaning how to draw and paint realistically and go straight to non-representational art, if that’s what they are into.
The idea with abstraction is that lines and colors and texture and composition don’t need to only imitate the outward appearance of things. So, for example, a cartoon can represent people and animals and so on without looking at all like photos.
Does music need to sound like voices? Can it only be voices. Or can it follow internal imperatives of melody, harmony, rhythm, and so on?
In the same way, art can focus more one line, color, composition, movement, texture, and so on, if it is not strictly tied to realism.
If you think an abstract painting isn’t art, than do you also think instrumental music without voices and lyrics isn’t music?
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Here’s the interesting thing. We’re both humans. Both of us will last in this current generation of humanity for about the average human lifespan, at give or take, 70 – 85 years. That means that we won’t be able to see when art meets its final moments in its slow descent into complete deconstruction.
What you state as art in abstractions, cartoons, instrumental music is what you, or I, or most other people can easily state to be art, though only because it is simple to admit it to be. It is simple to admit it to be, because we live in a time period where most others will believe the same.
There’s this idea with knowledge to ignorance, in how it takes far less time for ignorance to destroy something than it takes for knowledge to structure something. So, today’s “art” could be, at least in a more minor sense, “seeable” to our perspective of art, meaning that just like a person on a lifeline or on a respirator, they are hanging on by a thread.
You first admitted to me that the idea behind abstraction is to steer from a strict adherence to physical shape into more of design, in terms of the new appearance to this art. Since that’s the case, then you should be able to see abstract art as the first step, perhaps in the mindset of those who first thought of even just its concept, of the destruction process upon art. It would make all abstract artists as mere contributors to this slow death to art.
To answer your question according to my response, I do view instrumental music without voices or lyrics as music, though only because both my lifespan and my awareness to the modern day’s vision of art will not outlast nor be able to foretell the future of art.
The danger comes when abstraction will become more popular. What is always more popular with people is in what lacks the discipline to learn. As you said with “non-representational” artists, their first interest in realism for art does innately follow a line of thought that to build through the knowledge required to structure something will mean that this will not be something at all popular.
It is in what is popular that a person will immediately enjoy, such as what offers itself as accessible or affordable for people. Just the same way in how a government will offer something as more accessible for a country’s population is because what is always more popular is what does not revolve around knowledge. Just as a government would rely on a people’s own ignorance for such a population’s dependence on said government is also to do with how everything nowadays is being mass produced relates to all things both popular and accessible. And how does that relate to abstract art? I thought the abstract was to veer apart from the physical back to the design. Since that’s what you admitted, then all things that are more accessible to ignorant audiences of abstract art is an audience that favors what is mass produced, repeated, and thus loses the quality to soon become a mere quantity of arrangements.
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Abstraction is on one level just a difference style or approach to making art. It’s only “destructive” if you think painting must only be an imitation of how things appear in physical space. If someone wants to focus on color, or pattern, or line, or movement rather than on a representation of something real in physical space, I don’t have a problem with that.
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Even though I might sound like I heavily praise realism in the art world, I also criticize the hyper-realistic paintings, too. My reason for that is because art should appear as art, not ever with something to mask nor be so intentional through what is being avoided to express.
I view hyper-realistic paintings as cold. Although I don’t discount the painter’s extreme skill for making a painting look that close to a photograph, it’s that such a painter lacks the understanding of expressing truth. If there’s one thing always worthwhile to express, it’s truth. It should not involve intention. No one wants to tell their close friend that something horrible happened. It’s never their intention. It’s never their desire. Being intentional with art is where art should be believed to become not itself. It becomes mechanical, the same way as someone scheduling a computer to scan files through the anti-virus software.
In fact, that’s how a lot of artists I’ve spoken to are able to draw a line between the works they create that makes money and those that are true expressions of themselves. As in, they divide their art between commercial and non-commercial, and they’re able to understand that the works they must plan to do for their livelihood don’t show themselves in it.
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OK. I get that you aren’t for strict photographic realism.
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As one gets away from “hyper-realism” (which for me, is just another stylistic approach with its own virtues), one employs “abstraction”. For you, and for me as well, as it happens, having a balance of representation, interpretation, and respect for the medium and design is a more challenging and compelling direction.
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I disagree since we all have the ability to use distinctive details that still highlight a visual of what we wish to design.
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I’ve always looked for meaning in art or looked for meaning in what art can represent. With the same view to art, I look for what people can do for others. I see the expression in emotions as the way people can be connected. I see art in both the person, the human, and also with the second human being next to them, called perhaps a friend or a loved one by the first.
Destruction cannot be meaningful. I say that, since any person through their grief will be disconnected, until they are reconfirmed or reconnected with reality. That is, a grieving individual who, through dealing with the destruction of a life that caused their grief, must one day be reconnected with meaning. That, I believe, is the artistic way.
Who wouldn’t agree that what was lost or what had been destroyed, due to death’s embrace of something once treasured for how it had been held, can only be remembered for its good, while we forget the negative?
Do we hold grudges for dead artists? Or do we look on to their artworks to admire them, even after the death of its creator?
If art’s purpose is to provide meaning for people, give soul to a society, then it should mean to repair wounds, not cause more of them.
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Well put and I do agree with the value of such presentation. I recently written a book that outlined the dangerous of past works of art being used to ensure ideology and fascism(or helped them reach a chaotic, destructive ending).
So I can see your point of view there but also feel the need for abstract art, to highlight the pain and disconnect; an artist may be portraying.
Although, as you said, “Only the dead and divine themselves, can seem perfect without impunity”. The lesson learned is one that leaves chaos and destruction; leaving a stain on modern day society and history throughout the ages.
Thanks for sharing and take care.
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