?More often than not the abstract artists is not imitating nature or pursuing realism, but concerned with the spiritual or emotional state of colour and form, line and texture, balance and harmony, and will attempt to engage the viewer in a way that narrative, realistic of naturalistic art cannot.?.
*Christo - The Umbrellas, Ibaraki, Japan, 1984-91.
*Rosalie Gascoigne - Lamp Lit 1989.
We often understand abstract only when we have experienced the artwork directly and realized that in a poetic way of our lives have been changed, as has our comprehension of what art can be and do. The artists' personal, moral and artistic imperative seems to be to only connect the elements of art and nature such as light, space and colour. An Abstract connects art and engineering to show that they are not enemy faculties, connect people with beautiful materials and structures, connect people with their past and present. .
Christo's art is the creation of temporary, beautiful objects on a vast scale for specific outdoor sites. Christo and Jeanne-Claude confront what does exist with what they alone have determined can exist as a dramatic and beautiful form. Their art is the result of intelligence and aesthetic intuition added to the natural and built environment. .
Christo and Jeanne-Claude's art is a unique mixture of self-assertion and self-effacement. Their permanent identification with places and historic structures is by the force of art. They borrow land, public structures and spaces. Sites used and built by others and already freighted with associations that may or may not have anything to do with art. The artists believe the temporary nature of their projects gives them more energy and intensifies our response. But once they have wrapped a structure or intervened in a place, they are forever associated with that site.
They are sensitive to the beauty and expressive character of the continuously sustained complex spatial relationships possible with their octagonal umbrellas on different elevations for Japan and California.