"All good art is abstract in its structure"
Paul Strand
I have been thinking about this quote in connection with my all time favorite Strand image, "Blind". How is the photograph "Blind" abstract in structure? Does it represent all people who suffer? Is that what great portraiture does? represent a feeling an emotion that is unversal to all of us. I have a friend RP who thinks of portraits as simply representing single people that are only of interest to immediate family members, that can't be right. Is not all great portraiture a window into mankind? Does not a photograph of a dying child have a connection to all children? Maybe that is what Strand meant, in an abstract way good art crosses barriers and reflects a whole aspect of some feeling/understanding not just what is literally depicted in the artwork. Good art needs to be abstract to have cross cultural, cross human appeal. This reminds me of something Charlie Chaplin once said. His movies had world wide appeal because there was no language in them, they visually told a story that could be understood by all the worlds peoples. Maybe that is what good art is, it is abstract in the sense that everyone can understand it, that it can reach people on a emotional/personal level no matter who or where they are.
