ABSTRACTION AND REPRESENTATION

Transparent Drawing is not abstract.  Yet most people, when presented with Transparent Drawing, describe it as abstract.  For most of us, the drawing either looks real or it does not.  And if it does not look real, then we say, almost without thinking, well, that’s abstract.

This leads to the question, what is between representation and abstraction?  That is to ask how many words do we have that categorize art between representation and abstraction?

It turns out, not many.  Most introduction to art surveys go something like this:

Naturalism / Realism;  self explanatory, fully representational of the object (Vermeer)
Semiabstract;  some representation but simplified / shifted (Dali)
Objective Abstraction;  the subject / object appears non objectively (Picasso)
Nonobjective Abstraction;  no subject, just form / content (Pollock)

And that’s it.  The entire history and evolution of western painting and drawing can be put into the above four categories.  Of course there are a few subcategories.  Under Abstraction, the terms Minimalism, Abstract Expressionism, Cubism, Color-field, and Precisionism are applied.  Under Representational, we get terms like Impressionism and Idealism.

There should be far greater nuance in our language.  There should be more terms which help us to use, discuss and understand representation, abstraction, and everything in between.  What would we do with this new language?  We would have entirely new discussions regarding concepts such as holistic, relational, completeness, form, etc.  In short, we would have a new way to think, evaluate and understand.

These pages have addressed the need for a new language before.  The page Depictation took a first stab at evolving a new design word.  Other pages have touched on abstraction / representation, and they include Letter to Helen, Thinking Inbetween, Raphael’s Pantheon, etc.

Transparent Drawing is a combination of representation and abstraction.  It is representational, as it mandates resolved forms. It is self explanatory.  It shows real, complete objects.  The object also appears non objectively;  while it is absolutely clear what the object is, this is not the way that we see it.

The drawing above is both representational and abstract.  It is of a Kawakubo dress.  It represents a resolved, real, objective form.  It is absolutely clear what the object is.  It is non objective because this is not the way that you see it.

It is essential that we move our western cultural understanding beyond the binary of abstraction and representation.  Transparent Drawing is one avenue.  And I am sure there are many, many others.