The Psychology of Abstraction and the Visual Arts

The literature on abstraction in the visual arts identifies abstraction with deviation from, or distortion of, the optical values obtained in natural perception. Thus, it is not only modern art that is said to be high in abstraction but also the art of children, ‘primitives’ and ancient civilizations. Such an approach to abstraction is an impediment to the development of a proper psychology of the visual arts, one that can be reconciled to the central role that cognitive psychology affords to abstraction in respect of intellectual development. A radically different approach is offered here, which argues that both ‘naturalistic’ perception and representation are achieved only at high levels of abstraction. A distinction is made between two levels of abstraction, that of typification and that of individuation. The former represents a relatively low level of abstraction and the latter the attainment of a fully abstract level of operation, the initial phase of which is ‘naturalism’ and the final phase of which is a departure from naturalism of the kind exemplified in modern art. Furthermore, the level of abstraction that obtains in visual representations is held to be a function of the level of abstraction at which sensuous themas and values are to be ‘thought’ in and through such representations.