I watched this excellent programme on BBC4 showing works by, and interviews with, Gillian Ayres, Barbara Hepworth, Bridget Riley, Anthony Caro, Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, Victor Pasmore, John Hoyland, Howard Hodgkin. This was followed by “The Rules of Abstract Art” presented by Matthew Collings, which was an explanation of how Abstraction began, and its journey through to now.
The programmes gave an overview of how these artists have not only learned from each other, but have taken giant leaps into new territory that they have invented for themselves.
Matthew Collings visited contemporary artists, and we saw them working in their studios. We saw a wonderful array of working practises including throwing paint onto giant pieces of canvas and seeing what happened, randomly adding marks and colours without any plan but according to what “felt right”, planning everything in draft form and then working from the draft onto the big scale painting (like working from life but life is the draft you made), and carefully constructing each bit of the painting deliberately to create effects of colour and shapes.
Seeing a big range of abstract works, hearing Matthew Collings’ explanations, and getting insights into working practises all combined to help me have a better understanding of what abstract art is – essentially it is to do with how we respond to pure form, colour, texture, gesture, combinations of shapes, the sense of the artist making decisions and using materials. Some artists have been motivated by political idealism, some by rebellion against art establishments, but overwhelmingly the result is that what we see are the pure outcomes. I still don’t understand why we respond to these pure things, why texture and colour and shape, in themselves, are so important to us, but I was hugely uplifted, encouraged, stimulated, connected, awakened and pleased by all of it.
