An abstract point of view

As a student I never really liked Picasso, cubism or abstraction, but as I progresse more as an artist, abstraction and cubism etc becomes more and more interesting to me. It seems that as we develop our skills realism takes a back seat to experimentation and abstracting. I think it is the artists desire to create from within and not just copy from nature.

Abstract: (Websters says: Etymology: Medieval Latin abstractus, from Latin, past participle of abstrahere to drag away, from abs-, ab- + trahere to pull, draw
-having only intrinsic form with little or no attempt at pictorial representation or narrative content )

Some proponents of abstract painting , particularly the great Lawren Harris of Group of Seven fame, believe that an artist could abstract purely from thought, that there would be no relationship to any given form or natural occurrence. This may be true but since our thoughts are completely impacted by our senses, particularly sight then that may be hard to prove. But, abstracting can be as simple as painting an apple, the minute you lay brush to canvas that painting is abstract because that apple is never going to look quite the same ever again. This may be pushing the envelope but to a degree I believe it to be true.

I think that every conscious and subconscious thought we have goes into our work, abstract or not, therefore our work is impacted in some degree by our experiences.

Even high realism and photorealism I consider to be abstract because it is too clean, too perfect, too precise to be natural. Yes it has pictorial sense and narrative but it it is hyper-real, too real for real, therefore in a sense it could be called abstract just not in the classic sense.