abstract / theme Abstract art uses a visual language of form,
color and line to create a composition which may exist with a
degree of independence from visual references in the world.
Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of
the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an
attempt to reproduce an illusion of visible reality. The arts of
cultures other than the European had become accessible and
showed alternative ways of describing visual experience to the
artist. By the end of the 19th century many artists felt a need
to create a new kind of art which would encompass the
fundamental changes taking place in technology, science and
philosophy. The sources from which individual artists drew their
theoretical arguments were diverse, and reflected the social and
intellectual preoccupations in all areas of Western culture at
that time. Themes represent basic categories of thought,
emotion, or value. While our assignment of themes may at times
seem arbitrary or whimsical, they