Abstract Art

When I was asked to make a speech here I had some arguments against this wish because: for speaking we need at least the language so I must tell you that my friendship with the English language is not very close or complete. On the other hand every language is in some ways a poor medium for the expression of artistic aims.

This is one of the reasons why art is existent at all. Take for instance the word red. Even when you explain this red more precisely through other words, dark, light, deep, flat, active, substantial, loose, dense, transparent, opaque—still we will have different reds in our minds. Only the pigment red, the color by itself, is able to get all the different imaginations into the same direction. But the psychic reactions are still different. We could find many examples of this kind telling us how inadequate the language is for the expression of taste, only one example more: try to describe the taste of sweet or sour—impossible to find the right word. For the first argument I told you, I mean my individualistic English, I beg your pardon for the mistakes I shall make.

And then: understand my psychic situation, my state of mind. I am speaking here in front of my own pictures. I feel the temptation to feel proud. I would like rather to speak about the pictures of another painter. Then at least I would have the possibility of saying something good—or if you like, something bad.

My talk here shall be an answer to the question: what is the matter with abstract art? This question gives the impression that abstract art must be something quite new or something quite unusual, but it only seems so.

Let us observe a lady buying her hat, studying its form, seeking relationship to her face, eyes, mouth, dress—well, she is a judger of abstract forms. Every lady wearing a hat is dealing with abstract forms.

Ask a man who wears a necktie why he wears it—because he likes it. Why he likes the color and the combinations of colors, the lines and the proportions, the rhythm and so on—all qualities of an abstract kind. You see every man with a necktie deals with an abstract form.

What about rugs? Nobody would like to have a rug with the portraits of his family to tramp on, or a landscape, or naturalistic flowers. All rugs have ornaments. You see again everybody deals with abstract forms.

Let us find comparisons in other arts, for instance, in music. Nobody expects that a composer, before composing his work, is going into the woods to listen to a roaring lion or a barking dog, or something nicer, a singing nightingale or blue jay. Everybody thinks that it is all right that he composes out of his imagination, his material, the tones. And it is all right that no nature at all has had influence upon his work.

Why should we painters not have the same right to combine, like the musician, our medium—form, colors, proportions and so on?

You allow the architect to use forms without any representation. You allow the dancer to combine his movements to a composition without any sense of a thing or a situation, or to work only in a musical way. Everybody who likes Fred Astaire is an admirer of abstract art, and he who wants to dance like him, wants to be an abstract artist.

Back to the music:

All of you know the refrains to songs like:

Fulla la fulla la, or

Trallala tralala, or

Fol de rol, or

Hey nonny nonny.

Every child and grown-up likes them.

German ones:

Juchheirassassa

Tsching derassa bum

Hei didel hei didel—de dum

Or two modern American ones:

Hotchacha

Boopboopadoop

Well, I see you laughing or smiling so I have to state that you like this combination of acoustic mediums, an abstract part of poetry.

I conclude that you are lovers of abstract art, at least of abstract art in music or poetry, and so I have reason to finish my speech. Anyway it is clear abstract art is neither new nor unusual.

But let us go further on: Somebody will tell me that he doesn't understand it. All right. That I take as an honest confession. But the first conclusion from this statement would be: then don't tell me that such things are wonderful or awful.

Now we could analyze the word understand. Does it mean an intellectual ability to explain a part of a picture—sometimes a gesture says more than that—but this would lead us too far off, take too much time.

I imagine you will accept this, but probably your neighbor says something in opposition. Please tell him that an unmusical person can never prove the non-existence of music or the musical.

I want to give an example from my lessons: you drink wine for the first time. Please don't judge, but drink many wines, study them and probably then if you are looking for words to describe a wine you will see that you can't find them.

But I have an explanation for this non-understanding and will give you an historical reason: the development of the last centuries, particularly the nineteenth, show a development of naturalism and realism (materialism). Art was overwhelmed by aims toward imitation.

Earlier times were different. A picture tried to be more art than imitation.

The nineteenth century shows the picture as a cut-out of nature. But if you study art history, the oldest art is the ornament, and powerful races kept this art.

In this country the Indians for thousands of years produced only abstract art. In all countries the folk art is more art than imitation, and the how is more important than the what.

After the last generations with their emphasized imitative aims, we now feel a strong reaction and want in art again more art than nature, stories or sentiments. We can show a development toward the pure arts.

What are pure art aims?

That music is primarily a combination of tones
   Painting a combination of colors

   Dancing a combination of movements.
   Let us say this in artistic terms: we want more

   Composition

   Combination

   Construction

   Dynamic and static

   Weight and qualities

   Rhythm and balance

   and so on.

That means that we want to rediscover the artistic tasks of the old masters.

Don't misunderstand me. I like portraits and landscape. I did them myself for many years. And I don't underestimate the study of nature as a foundation for art studies, the proof of this is in my art classes where we study the real objective representation.

But art is still more. As life is more than nature, so is art more than life. Because art is spirit—that means an essential seeing—instead of imitation we need translation.

Art is spirit and spirit is eternal.