Rendering 3

              Abstract or Realistic Painting

The author of the article is Evelien Nijeboer, artist since 1991. It was published on the web site creativespotlite.com The article provides some artistic research on color, modern art history and other aspects of painting.

The author points out 2 main categories of art "abstract" and "realistic". Realistic paintings are immersed with abstract aspects like color, composition, forms and texture. Abstract art always has some new and creative referral to our memory of sensory perception. Evelien explaines that when you paint realistic, you need some abstract skills to make good paintings; and in abstract painting, you also need to have some realistic painting skills. When we make realistic paintings, we can play with the mood of picture by choosing specific subjects, props, or a specific time of the day. According to the text the main difficulty is that it's hard to perceive natural state. You only have to relate to your canvas with your own body as referring material. Nijeboer emphasizes that you only have to relate to your canvas with your own body as referring material. In addition to abstract art painting, it does make a difference if you take a naturalistic subject and paint it in a new way, or if you paint really abstract and try to generate meaning. Besides painting becomes interesting where realistic and abstract painting are connected.

So, the author comes to the conclusion that concepts like 'realistic' and 'abstract' are concepts that remain dead when taken as given objects, but they come alive when you connect them to each other. This kind of objectivity is what gives the real value of art. The body is the key. And Evelien Nijeboer hopes that maybe it's time we start to use it.

To my mind abstract painting is closer today than realistic. It has a very clear artistic challenges. There is enough history for generalizations, and also contains an infinite chain of differences. It is more accessible than realistic. I think that realistic painting is for “gourmet”.