Abstraction in the Landscpe

This section of the A level was set as an exam. 30 hours of supervised work in the dark room and/or on the computer.

The Exam Question:

“Wynn Bullock and Minor White used viewpoint, depth of field and lighting to explore the abstract qualities of objects and features in the landscape. Investigate this theme, research appropriate examples and produce a personal response.”

The Investigation

What is abstraction?

The dictionary definition of abstract has many meanings. In an art context is often taken to mean that which is not a physical representation of reality. Throughout this study, abstract and abstraction has come to mean pure thought.

In the response to this question two areas were examined.

Firstly how Neolithic man stamped his impression on the landscape to record his thoughts in terms of death and the universe around him.

Secondly, to understand the value of ambiguity, intuition and instinct. In a technological society we are at pains to demonstrate the logic and proof of what we do and believe. But man is more than this; we have hunches, gut feelings and intuition that the photographic process can represent, without words, without logic.

There are rules in photography; where best to position the image, how to compose a photograph, the decisive moment to press the shutter. But in the process of taking a photo we think of none of these. It’s intuitive. Yes, the image is usually in the 1/3 and all the other good things about the composition are there, but we didn’t think about it. It was intuitive, click, a moment in time is captured.

Recording the ambiguous.

When we look at a work of art or a photograph, there are many interpretations of what the artist or photographer is saying. The reason photography works so well in recording the ambiguous is that it lets the viewer interpret the image, the art of photography is to point the viewer at the image and let him subjectively interpret what is there.

For example, no one really knows why stone circles were built. A monument to the dead? An astronomical calendar? A ritual place for sacrifice? You decide. Photography lets you do that.

Likewise, what is it that the photographer sees in a landscape? He can only direct you to see his abstract thoughts.

Minor White

“The state of mind of the photographer while creating is blank….For those who would equate “blank” with a kind of emptiness, I must explain that this is a special kind of blank. It is a very active state of mind really, a very receptive state of mind, ready at an instant to grasp an image, yet with on image pre-formed pattern or preconceived idea of how anything ought to look is essential to this blank condition. Such a state of mind is not unlike a sheet of film itself – seemingly inert, yet so sensitive that a fraction of a second’s exposure conceives life in it”.

White would take his photographs by literally meditating in the landscape and than intuitively photographing the scene. In as sense excluding the logical process from what he was doing and letting the intuitive take over.

His photographs could simply be of cracked paint on a wall, or sections of tree. Short-circuiting the logical process in favour of instinct.

I some of his photographs infra-red film was used. This gives a white appearance to leaves on trees and further enforces the abstract view of reality.

Wynn Bullock

“How can you expand unless you search beyond what you are at the moment? To me, the search is everything. I speak not as an artist, physicist, or a churchgoer, but as a human being seeking meaning. If a person stops searching, he stops living. Everything is a miracle, including ourselves.”

Bullock sought to understand the connection between reality and existence. He saw that logic and rational thinking imposed limitations to “the search” for greater meaning.

He sought to explore the connection between the physical and the abstract.

“Two worlds exist on opposite sides of our sense organs: the inner world of ideas in our minds, and the outer world of events that stimulate our senses. Visual communication is based on the supposition that relationships between the two worlds can be established.”

Much of Bullocks work relies on the counter positioning of objects in the image. A naked human, against a forest background, or a young child walking through an immense woodland.

This technique was very much promoted by surrealist photographers like Man Ray, who was a great influence on Bullock.