Abstract
Related: respresentation (arts) - abstract visual art - abstract film - abstract music
Nocturne in Black and Gold, the Falling Rocket, ca. 1875
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)
Oil on panel
23 _ x 18 _ in. (60.3 x 46.4 cm)
Definition
Abstraction is the thought process wherein ideas are distanced from objects.
Abstraction uses a strategy of simplification of detail, wherein formerly concrete details are left ambiguous, vague, or undefined; thus speaking of things in the abstract demands that the listener have an intuitive or common experience with the speaker, if the speaker expects to be understood.
For example, lots of different things have the property of redness: lots of things are red. And we find the relation sitting-on everywhere: many things sit on other things. The property of redness and the relation sitting-on are therefore abstract.
Problems begin to arise; however, when we try to define specific rules by which we can determine which things are abstract, and which concrete. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction [Sept 2004]
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