Alain - I'm lookin forward to part two to see where you go with it. I am still pondering part 1 but as far as I can tell neither of the images included in the article qualify as abstracts.
Best, Chuck
Yes. Good article.
I would certainly agree that the image of Death Valley Playa from Dante's Peak is not an abstract. Even if one is totally unfamiliar with the location, it seems pretty obvious that the image is depicting an arid region with water flowing over it.
However, the first image, 'Reflections', is more of an abstract, but not fully abstract because reflections in water are a common subject nowadays, and I suspect if this image were presented without title, and the viewers were asked what they thought it represented, most would probably say 'reflections of some sort'.
However, if you were to ask them to be more specific, 'reflections of what?', I think the answers would be inconsistent and variable.
I therefore think that the first image is certainly more abstract than the second image in the article. Perhaps one would describe the first image as a 'semi-abstract'.
This situation is not 'either/or'. There's a broad spectrum from what is clearly identifiable as a depiction of a real and recognisable scene, to what is no more than a strange and intriguing pattern of light and shape, that appeals emotionally, but which depicts nothing that one can identify as real.
Jackson Pollock's Blue Poles, owned by the Australian Government, is an example of an extreme abstract. However, if you were to ask me what it represents in reality, I'd say it's an imaginary depiction of our neural network, brain cells and synapses.
