Cubism was perhaps a further response to photography. Building on the abstractions of Wassily Kandinsky, it presents many sides of an object at once, responds to the movements, it makes and abstracts as in summarises from multiple view-points. Willem de Kooning’s early work had something of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon about it, latterly extended through non-figurative abstraction. DeKooning believed he was a craftsman without a purpose, maybe this is a good way of seeing modern art in its totality.


If a function of art is to communicate emotion, it is not clear what emotion photorealism communicates with only perspective creating depth, denial of paint as paint and representation without expression. Maybe the intended response is to impress the viewer with the technique of the artist and that is fine I guess. One function of art regards a competitive streak in humanity, an advertisement to potential mates, but as Ted Hughes regarded on the best in art, to paraphrase: some artists impress you with the intelligence of the universe... some merely of their own intelligence. Indeed, the painterly works of the abstract expressionists point you in the direction of the universe - they are expansive, Pollock’s especially, they use the universe to create them: a choreography of controlled chance went into their creation. The depth of field without perspective in Rothko’s work is a kind of universe in itself, a still film in which the viewer creates the emotional movement by contemplative involvement; the field of colour enveloping the viewer, the light layered paint scintillating in some, night sky deep in others. Mark Rothko remarked that his technique involved: "breathing paint on canvas".


Perhaps these silent breaths are the best thing that can be said of art: see the thing itself and leave words for music, the words of Wittgenstein often have an inescapable quality about them. One could go even further and relegate the lyrics in song to part of the music. Maybe music is where it ends and some tunes you like and some you don’t. As Hendrix said there are only two kinds of music: good and bad. His tastes were legendarily eclectic and the best strategy is not to rule out genres, but keep your options open and listen with your eyes for any good work in any form.


There is now a one hundred year tradition of modern abstraction. A tradition passed through Johns, Rothko, Pollock and Twombly, but possibly more especially Rauschenberg and Mark George Tobey, is continued by artists such as John Squire of Stone Roses fame. As I have repeatedly said, I feel the connection with music is no coincidence. I see it as one of the prime impulses in the abstraction of art - it is a musical impulse fulfilled in the form of a plastic art. The late Frank Zappa returned the analogy by saying his guitar soloing and classical compositions were sculpting with air - forcing air particles to do his bidding. Exercising this control and responding to chance, as in life is the route of all great work and surely the basis of emotional expression in general as well as abstract expressionism. All these practitioners in their time have ridden the riff of their talent generating compositions of lasting value.


Useful sites – www.andresserrano.org www.johnsquire.com www.americanabstractartists.org See next issue for more on John Squire’s latest exhibition, Noise. 23


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