Pictures of Nothing

Viewers usually have strong reactions to abstract images, ranging from puzzlement to outright hostility. In this seminar we will explore the reasons why some artists chose to abandon the subject, relying only on form, shape, and color to convey their meaning. We will look at artists working in two dimensions, from 1900 to the present. Among the artists considered will be Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Kurt Schwitters, Jackson Pollock, Agnes Martin, and Julie Mehertu. Most of the artists on our list began working by depicting subject matter realistically, and ultimately arrived at abstraction through their own processes. Agnes Martin, for example, said that she sits and waits for inspiration to come to her. And it does – fully-formed in her mind’s eye – the size of a postage stamp. Using a complicated set of mathematics, she then scales it up to the predetermined size of her canvas.