Abstract Painting - How To Recognize One? by Michael Brock

Abstract painting – How to recognize one? Many lovers of art have been asking what abstract painting really mean. Abstract painting was coined from two words; abstract, which Webster dictionary defines as “expressing a quality of art from the objective or having only intrinsic form with little or no pictorial representation”. The second word is painting which I believe we all know.

From the above, we can deduce abstract painting as telling, showing, drawing, as well as painting the quality and importance of an object without actually depicting the object itself.

One may begin to ask or wonder how a painter arrives at an abstract design. Many artists posit that they actually started with a representation motif and that this motif is something that can be identified. After this, they study the motif, looking for the bones and skeletons – that is they study the essence of the object. As a result, they express the essence in colorful shapes, beautiful colors and also put some life into it.


In any painting whatsoever, the artist is either trying to make a statement or try to pass a message. The abstract artist or painter send such a message in a very simple manner by making use of brush marks, colors, and interesting shapes. In the same vein, since color is the artist’s number one tool, he uses it to the best of his knowledge for it may determine the success or otherwise of his painting work.

Many people believe that before a painting could be referred to as good work of art, it must be representational. In other words, if they look at the painting and did not see every leaves on the tree or every hair on the head then the art work is not good. This is simply untrue. One may prefer to see every leave on a tree or every hair on the head, but that does not necessarily make a good or bad work.

In this instance, what then can we use to justify an abstract painting?

The guidelines for representational painter are not so much different from that of an abstract painter. Simply put, the art work must possess readable value, contrast, color harmony cum dominance; variety of shapes, colors and lines, all that pertains to good art must also be represented in abstract art.

A good abstract may be difficult to understand by an average person than representational art due to the fact that the abstract painter rely more on his imaginations and intuition to bring meaning and value out of an object.

In order to understand a work of art, the best way to approach it is to have the idea in your mind to simply appreciate it. Bringing meaning out of an object is one good characteristic of artists like Umberto Boccioni.

Umberto Boccioni was an Italian painter, sculptor, and theorist of the futuristic movement in art (1882-1916). He painted works like peasants at work, boats in sunlight, etc. His first major futuristic painting was riot in the gallery painted in 1909, remained close to pointillism and showed an affiliation with futurism mainly in his violent subject matter and dynamic composition. You can buy this and other Boccioni's works from our site.