How do you create abstraction through line and perspective?
Let's find out!
Another way to make a composition abstract is to distort the subject. This can be done in several different ways, but the two this lesson covers are distorting the lines in the artwork and changing the perspective (or adding multiple perspectives). Look at the following artworks and note how they are abstracted.
Click on the images to enlarge them and learn more about distorting images.
Smythy by Olga Rozanova
While this artwork isn't completely abstracted, it is a good example of how the distortion of line makes an artwork less realistic. Here, Rozanova uses a lot of curved lines that cause the composition to seem like it is being viewed, partially, from a fish-eye lens. The structures and the ground do not look stable, as they would with hard, straight lines. It is almost as if they are trying to stay upright on water or during an earthquake.
The Amselfluh by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Abstraction in this artwork was accomplished by exaggerating both the natural lines of the subject and the colors. This seems like it could be a representation of mountains, but most mountains are not rounded and sloped like they are in this artwork. This distorts them and almost makes them seem like waves.
Bridge, Landscape From Four Points of View by David Burliuk, 1911
You saw this artwork earlier, and it is an excellent example of how adding multiple perspectives abstracts a composition. It is done in a similar way as the Cubist portrait from earlier in this course. Simply draw a subject from different locations and then pick and choose how to connect them together. This method also works well with simplified shapes and forms as well as distorted lines.
Distortion occurs when something is stretched in a way that makes it look different. It doesn't necessarily mean that the object is unrecognizable, but distortion can be taken to that extreme if that is the artist's intention. In your sketchbook, draw the same tree as before, but this time distort it so that the tree looks different. You can curve the lines, stretch them, or draw them from multiple perspectives.
