4/6 The Rules Of Abstraction With Matthew Collings
• 1/6 The Rules Of Abstr...
First broadcast: Sep 2014.
Documentary in which painter and critic Matthew Collings charts the rise of abstract art over the last 100 years, whilst trying to answer a set of basic questions that many people have about this often-baffling art form. How do we respond to abstract art when we see it? Is it supposed to be hard or easy? When abstract artists chuck paint about with abandon, what does it mean? Does abstract art stand for something or is it supposed to be understood as just itself?
These might be thought of as unanswerable questions, but by looking at key historical figures and exploring the private world of abstract artists today, Collings shows that there are, in fact, answers.
Living artists in the programme create art in front of the camera using techniques that seem outrageously free, but through his friendly-yet-probing interview style Collings immediately establishes that the work always has a firm rationale. When Collings visits 92-year-old Bert Irvin in his studio in Stepney, east London he finds that the colourful works continue experiments in perceptual ideas about colour and space first established by abstract art pioneers such as Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky in the 1910s.
Other historic artists featured in the programme include the notorious Jackson Pollock, the maker of drip paintings, and Mark Rothko, whose abstractions often consist of nothing but large expanses of red. Collings explains the inner structure of such works. It turns out there are hidden rules to abstraction that viewers of this intriguing, groundbreaking programme may never have expected.
This is one of the best series of abstract art I have seen. Matthew Collins did a marvellous job in this programme. Abstract art may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s most certainly mine. Wonderful explanation of abstract art in as simple terms as possible. Abstract art is still misunderstood, but I love it.
I believe that this series is absolutely brilliant, and one of the very best ever posted on KZhead. Mathew Collings presentation is outstanding. Many, many thanks.
Christopher Walker is my name! ... but i understand if it's yours as well, although i did freak me out when i was about to write my comment,,, and it seemed i'd already written it,,, ,,, but i agree, MC is a very persuasive, charming and informative presenter for this art - although that wasn't what i was going to write until i saw your comment and tripped over writing this... luckily i remembered i do have another ID. Happy Days other Christopher Walker! (i must now re-watch it ... when i should be making my own pictures!...)
Loved this - " Purely abstract painting is more true to the real reality that lies behind everything than a painting that attempts to capture aspects of the illusion version of that higher reality."
A difficult view of art to explain is brilliantly done by Matthew Collings and these other artists, beautiful mood music too.
Matthew Collings is very well studied and comprehended in the subjects he infuses for defining amd explaining this content. He communicates, teaches, explains, in a most premium fashion, in this Documentary. An extremely good job, and it is further enhanced by his speaking rhythm and tone, offering an ease and easy listen. Appreciating this content.
I'm not an artist but one who loves art and this is absolutely brilliant!!
It's a lot of pretending that something special is going on when really it's just a game for the rich.
@Dick Richard: What a trite comment. The vast majority of artists are not rich. Focus on what matters.
Thank you. Excellent series.
This is such a great doc! Thank you for putting it up.
be true to the real reality......while we are possibly facing the end of humanity due to abrupt climate change, abstract art makes me feel more alive than ever, thank you so much for producing this fabulous series on abstraction.
Yes!
Very interesting and worth watching.
You teach me soo much thank you Matthewx
Brilliant. -
I'm getting a lot from this series about abstract art as far as developing my eye for abstract art and developing my ways to create abstract art...but I am eagerly awaiting a part of this series that is not all about theosophy, which seems to me a theory of illusion, and counterproductive as a theory of how to make, see, or get any real, live value from an experience of art. I am here to learn about art, but not to take on spiritual dogma. There's useful stuff here that is partially concealed by the spiritual dogma that I have to scrape off of my mental canvas before I can make use of the information.
loved the "wrong" cut in the video in 03:40 a second before her papers about to slip from the table :)
Great film Matthew your passion for art always shows!one gripe there are a lot of charlatans making a lot money for what is basically abstract by numbers, and you had one whose work was just potboiler art and she was talking her art into being relevant whereas I call it ikea art!shows it true that it’s who you know not what you can do more so in the art world so up its wealthy people only allowed attitude
absolutely great you give all artist depth & reminder of art essence & essential. forgive some ignorant may watching your video.
Parviz Naseri bullllllll
a true artist creates because life becomes so mundane that the artist must create something which has never existed before, for they are the true visionaries of society
That's nice
But a tortured soul. May be a more accurate observation
lovely bit of music at the end of this video,does anyone have the title of it??
Does anyone know the song at 8'05'' ? I've tried to use SoundHound and Shazam but got nothing. Many thanks!
Love Tess Jaray's work.
I could not understand the abstract bace concebt of a -f and 1/6. can you explain it a bit better?
Maybe it's about the conversation between people surrounding the painting...
who are the three artists in this docu? need the answer for an assignment.
0:33 where is that building? such architecture... Germany?
is this the academic standard view of abstract art ? can someone who studied art, or is well read in this field, can tell me whether this is just the individual view of Matthew collings? or the common, academic view?
It's a bit of both. Of course, Collings is controlling the message and the emphasis' that he wants to promote. However, within the various "rules" he does reveal some basics that are not only important to abstract, but to all types of art to a certain degree, especially those of composition, color, depth, texture, etc...
Pretty much the standard view.
Why use this Mondrian, among so many that are likely more accessable to those who may not understand abstract art, or who may be curious about it- presumably the audience for this film?
Yeah, not my favorite Mondrian and the color is way off. I think he wanted a very minimal one. It's all hard to get Mondrian or any of these artists without seeing their progression from realism through abstraction.
I think it is ok to not like this, or to like it, but to want to paint in a figurative way.
Absolutely not. If you paint with no abstract basis, you will create a soulless photo.
No Rule is the rule of Abstract.
It is all about the analytical mind unable to grasp or unwilling to grasp the concept of abstract. So, the artist must create the abstract with recognizable images in an analytical concept for the Analytical to be able to begin to enjoy the abstract. Analytical abstract is a gate way concept in art to include the hard working ambitious affluent.
With no ceiling, no floor and no walls... there is no house...only your imagination.
Where's 3/6?
It’s online..but blocked in Germany (audio©copyright-claim)
I guess anything can be art, I enjoy most abstract work. I just can't get over how simple some things are though and it looks as if someone took a picture of the rug in their bathroom and just put it up on a wall. I guess a rug can be interesting if you stare at it long enough aren't you supposed to bring about a lot of mixed feelings and it is doing just that LOL
I wish I could paint water rippling. Like I truly see it
I so want to understand this, but I just don't get it.
This isn't art. It is all a study of color, shapes and forms. A study is not art no more than a study of music is not music
Its easy. The reason why great portraits are great, is because they do not show you how someone looks, they show you their emotions, personality and depth of character. Abstract art is just emotions without the bullshit superficial painting of a face getting in the way.
There’s always someone who shows up to say “That’s not art”.
If you can trigger imagination in the observer what a painting might be thats it. It will sell
Bullshit sells .
1:18 Saul from Homeland
Mimesis the illusionistic representation of the visual appearance of things... Know this, nature is a constant, a 1, 1, 2, 3, resonance of the Golden Ratio, it is perfect. The Material is an illusion of that perfection as its far from perfect, whilst there are those who have manipulated their capacity to resonate that perfection, many simply fail to conclude how Man can exist as Man should... If Health is Wealth then why am I charged a debt just to have what nature has offered freely? Why the dogma and tyranny? Please Sir can I have some more.... We have been sold a fake, this is not reality, never could be, never was intended to be. Watch and see it for what it is, it's all a very dramatic dream!
I did not mean moment but movement - sorry
The artist who uses a printing process to create her paintings, says it has to be a certain sharpness and color that you can’t get from paint, but you can, you can get wonderful color from paint it depends on how you use it and what kind of color You want, her artwork is just graphic design it doesn’t even say art to me it’s just objects with a design pattern on them they look like something that’s commercially made by computers and robots it doesn’t look like it’s made by human it doesn’t have any qualities of what I would consider art.. I mean it looks machine made, the color is intense sure, it’s still oil based paint, you can get a greed effect even if it’s not this clean.Rothco, miro, matisse did.. and their paintings look like it was done by the hand of a human being not by some machine with a printing process. That’s what I don’t understand if that’s what she wants then it seems dead to me like there’s no soul to it, there’s no energy it’s just an object and nothing more for me at least
I don't feel comfortable with printing
You don’t know how that would work? Ever heard of Rietveld and De Stijl?
Colours and zipties print , art 🖼️
I want to buy that Mondrian and finish it with a Sharpie.
A man stuck a Banana to a wall. Another ate it. Both were art
Multiple layers of irony
So the "black square" is only meaningful because it inhabits the idea of the painter and for us the knowledge of what he ment by that and is only powerful if we can relate to that. Other that that its just a black square on top of a white one..could mean anything..or nothing. Sometimes i dont get art...did the artist realy put that much thought into his paintings..or did he just put a square here and there because he thought it looks nice...and years later someone litteraly interprets one of ur paintings in the most eloquent way while u just painted some random things..
I know right .
I think (most not all ) do it cuz it looks nice . And sells lol
To reducere to the essense of colour with no visual trace of the movement - this is really strange because is moment not the essence of everything - ?
Yeah but once you've abstractly painted it right you've made it reality so your possibly deceitful towards the creation of the illusion behind the façade therefore the figurative is the more truthful representation.
l knocked out a couple of squares just yesterday, l'm calling it, Garden Fence, it's about what seperates but at the same time keeps us together. l'm on medication now, so the l'm starting to feel a bit better.
That old bat Jarrys art is abysmal
incredible how much some people like to smell other people's farts
I wonder what her apron would be worth
All of this is breaking copyright, yet if I go to the official channel there is next to nothing for which I have to pay £150 to maintain the preening presenters staggering wealth while this broadcast is free illegally benefiting another sinister monitoring agent. It is confusing and I don't find sympathy anywhere I think all there is must be paint.
Sorry I should have toned down the rhetoric on this one, thank you for our art programs.
@@ezicarus8216 Art is exhibited sometimes to get it ready for sale, or exhibited while on sale. I doubt that was the case with the art in the film.
The way he pauses between words is very distracting
Word salad festival …
1:13, what is so complex about it? Looks like a bathroom tile!! Even in the world of abstract art, there is art and deviation but this is , for the lack of better word, crap!!
8:04 god I hate how pretentious and phony this world can be
Cause you are lazy to understand deeper.
Dude, stop telling the artists what they are doing and saying and meaning- LOL Chill man.
You chill. He is just trying to be kind with the artists!
I'm just impressed that they agree with him *every* time
he's not telling he's clarifying
@@damarisbojorm I am chill... and I think kind is the wrong word to use in this sitch. Whatevs, sorry I came off like a douche.
@@ianbrown8418 mmmm, its more like he's leading the witness. It would just be cooler if he got them to say it, even if they have a hard time saying it, then he can help them along. I was just tripping on this as I had just read a bunch of Gauguin's thoughts on critics and this dude totally seemed like what he was describing. But I'm sure he means well, Matthew Collins is a cool guy its just he dose this in every video in this series.
I just don't get it....
Collings talking about the art is way more interesting than the art, all to do about nothing.
I can see a lot of "artists" , admitting they are phoney .
Malevich sounds entitled and pretentious.
Entitled to what? God?
this video "lacks solidity of any kind"
Talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk about nothing.
Ignorant.
Supreme nonsense, move on.
Okay , than you here?! GTFO!! You don't have to watch it and spew B's here
@@Moodboard39 Can you spell more accurately , And try to put a real sentence together? Thank you .
With all due respect to Matthew, but I'd say he's reading too much into this kind of artwork, especially the one made by Malevitch, the red and black square, and the other one called the black square. There is just no way you can explain these images in a rational way. Matthew tries but it sounds more like BS to me. If this kind of artwork is not suppose to be privy to the rational mind, then no amount of words can explain it. And since most people are more in touch with the rational mind and have some measure of what looks good, what is the point of abstract art going against it? Why not instead create art that goes beyond the rational mind? I would say that Hilma af Klint succeeded in that. Malevitch on the other hand is BS-ing us big time.
Time to open the mind....
Not all Malevich paintings wasnt bullshit u buffoon
Indeed, I noticed that also, lot of BS around to convince the viewers that is art , some of it has connections with the top richest , use for moving money . There is also an documentary about it , how is that art?
Rubbish
Pure crap.
Junior C Haha. Although I would love to disagree with you. You actually make a bold valid statement. They seem to put way to much thought into a black square.
now you sound smart, you agree with me. But really, I'm an artist that suffers, suffers to create new images that intellectually provoke peoples minds, so when I see this effortless art hanging in a gallery it pisses me off real quick. Are you an artist ?
Junior C My favorite artists are Caspar David Friedrich and Edvard Munch. With that said, I can appreciate some forms of abstract art because it leaves room for the imagination much like the night that settles on a land or cityscape. However there is a certain amount that I feel is pretentious junk. Some earnest artist may indeed be fragmented and disconnected inside, or their perception of reality is fragmented and disconnected, and their work is just an extension of that-- in some cases I believe that this may be true. But sincere folk such as these would not necessarily endeavour to gain notoriety or acclaim or have the energy to do so-- it would be left to friends, acquaintances, or relatives.
***** Great point, every artist must follow their own path. I don't want to minimize somebody's existence. Besides I believe in the journey more then the result.
***** Your positive energy ! That is good karma.
It's a scam.
Complex bullshittery does not art make.
nonsense