Aesthetic Limitations of Non-Objective Painting

Abstract

Non-Objective art has an ancient and continuous history. Decorative patterns—patterns whose forms bear no conscious or recognizable similarity to specific objects extant in the material world, or even to unnatural combinations and distortions of such objects—have been found on burial urns, clasps, belts, knife handles, tomb walls, clothing and other such useful objects created throughout every millennium and in every major area in which an artistic tradition has survived. The fact that a large number of such forms may refer to specific objects or concepts in the material world, not through similarity but through established symbolism, cannot be ignored. But it is sufficient to recognize that in recent centuries elaborate literary documentation demonstrates the existence of a large body of non-objective art used to decorate useful objects and devoid of any conscious symbolic intent. Widespread and continuous acceptance of such forms, usually among all levels of society, demonstrates that these forms give p...