Some Thoughts on Abstract Art - Jacob Hamilton

 A question that emerged during the class discussion of Kandinsky's work was the question regarding the value of abstract art. According to Kuspit, Kandinsky wanted to distance himself from the materialistic assumptions of the day. Good art did not come from arranging all the parts together correctly but emerges when it is successful in capturing something. For Kandinsky, there was something he sought to capture in his work. He attempted to do this by bypassing form as much as possible. However, is this really possible? Can the meaning of an artwork be maintained without the use of form?  

Art, as it primary end, is not meant to capture form. This would be the materialistic assumption of Kandinsky's day. By form, I mean, roughly, the shape of things. Often in our materialistic age, people assume form is all that there is, that there is nothing which the forms signify. For many, a good painter is merely one who possesses the technical ability to arrange shapes and colors in such a way that the final product strikes the eye as pleasant. Under this view, there is no underlying unity or meaning which undergirds the artist’s project. To see what is wrong with this perspective, consider an analogy. Words on paper are composed of certain shapes arranged together in a certain way. Yet, it is not the shape of the word that is significant. Rather, it is the meaning behind the shape of the word which is significant. Likewise, it is not the arrangement of shapes and colors that is significant in a painting but rather the inner meaning which the painting is trying to convey.  

Kandinsky, it seems to me, was trying to bypass form as much as possible and capture pure meaning in his artwork. Yet, is this really possible? If I wish to communicate something to another person, I have to use words. For me to convey meaning, I have to put it into some type of form. Without form, meaning cannot be communicated. It seems to me that the project of abstract art is fraught because of this. Abstract art tries to communicate meaning with as little form as possible, yet form is the vehicle by which meaning is made known.