The Spiritual in Abstract Art : Tuchman : Hidden Meanings
Maurice Tuchman : Hidden Meanings in Abstract Art The first of 19 essays in the catalog of "Abstract Art : Abstract Painting 1890-1985" ..for the 1986 exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as curated by the author of this essay. *************** Jasper Johns, Book, encaustic and book on wood, 9 x 13" Abstract art remains misunderstood by the majority of the viewing public. Most people, in fact, consider it meaningless. Yet around 1910, when groups of artists moved away from representational art toward abstraction, preferring symbolic color to natural color, signs to perceived reality, ideas to direct observation, there was never an outright dismissal of meaning. Instead, artists made an effort to draw upon deeper and more varied levels of meaning, the most pervasive of which was that of the spiritual. Tuchman says a lot in this introductory paragraph - and he makes two assertions that are not necessarily compatibl...