What’s an Abstract Image?

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In literature, abstract imagery is language that portrays sensations or experiences that have no physical parallels, such as ideas, concepts, or emotions. It is distinct from concrete imagery, which describes physical objects and sensations such as colors, sounds and shapes. This is different from abstract visual art, although abstract art and abstract images in literature share a common motivation: to express something that cannot be perceived by visual or sensory means. While most people will interpret the concrete word “yellow” generally the same way, for example, each person will react differently to the word “unnatural.” The challenge for the artist or writer is to convey an abstract idea in a way that conveys the desired effect to most or all of the audience.

Language is a way of sharing experiences and ideas, bridging the gap between individuals who have different perspectives and backgrounds. The things of the physical world are relatively simple to express; most people can visualize concepts like “pyramid,” “woman,” and “alligator” with little effort. Abstract concepts, however, are more difficult. The concepts “awesome”, “cute” and “scary”, for example, are subjective judgments that each person will interpret differently. A writer trying to convey these concepts may need to choose different or additional words to create the desired effect.

Abstract images attempt to describe the vast extent of human experience that is not limited to the physical world. This can include concepts such as “infinity” and “zero”, shared ideas such as “freedom” and “reason”, and experiences such as “death” and “exaltation”. Although they are universal concepts, there is no universally recognized image or sensation to describe them. Information writers, such as journalists and scientists, must use precise language to accurately describe abstract concepts. Persuasive writers, like novelists, have a different challenge: to convey their characters’ abstract experiences and emotions in a way that readers can understand and even sympathize with.

The word “abstract” is often used to describe 20th-century visual art movements, such as abstract expressionism. Painters and other artists renounced representational techniques, creating images that seemingly had little or no connection with reality. One could say that their motivation was to express concepts and experiences that had no visual parallel, similar to the use of abstract images in literature. Written language has an advantage over visual art in these cases; a writer wishing to express sadness may use words such as “melancholy”, “grief” or “depression”, modifying them with adjectives and other descriptive terms. A painter who wishes to express sadness as a concept does not have such reliable techniques to rely on.

However, this is not to say that abstract images in visual art are necessarily random. Pioneers of abstract art such as Wassily Kandinsky explored the idea that certain colours, shapes and lines could convey concepts that had no corresponding physical image. Jagged lines, for example, could represent disorder or chaos by suggesting broken glass, even if the audience was knowingly unaware of the connection. During the same era, early comic book artists began using their own form of abstract images on the page. The word balloon, for example, has become a widely recognized symbol for the non-visual concept of speech, even outside the realm of comics.

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