An Opinion

Opinion essay

I chose the painting from chapter six, Willem de Kooning, Woman and Bicycle, 1952-53. Oil, enamel, and charcoal on linen. It is essential to truly admire this painting to understand the brain's frontal lobe, which deals with many qualities that make us most human: abstract thinking, planning, executive control, and judgment. Throughout all brain structures, association areas make the brain most powerful. These areas can link concepts together to form new ideas, to represent the outside world with such richness on the inside. 

For many, to think abstract is challenging, especially for a person that respects the structure of logic. Still, this painting is a good representation of abstract thought that can be captured and preserved, with care, that will outlast the mind that helped produce it. The picture seems it is attempting to maintain this image in the brain but could only make it so far. The pieces will always be missing. 

When blood flow to the brain is blocked, or when a blood vessel ruptures, brain cells die due to lack of oxygen. The functions controlled by that brain area, such as visual perception, are impaired or lost. This painting could be similar to the visual perceptions after suffering a stroke. Or it isn't. 

The entire concept remains abstract until the artist reveals the concept as a whole. Until the viewer understands the genuine concept, only the artist can articulate the painting. It seems such art can be anything if not given true meaning.

An example would be the human race, our pursuit of finding purpose in life. It seems the origin of the human race can be anything. Indeed, it is still an abstract concept. It seems the fossil fuels we use outdates every sacred text known. Such thoughts rely on the abstract. 

The least favorite painting was Julian Onderdonk (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.), Bluebonnet Field, Early Morning, San Antonio Texas, c. 1914, oil on canvas. I wouldn't say I like this painting from chapter one because my great grandfather was born in Cheapside, Texas, in 1912. He would've been two years old that early morning. He was a farmer and lived to be 89 years old, but suffered from Alzheimer's in his last years. All because of the disorder of the Neurotransmitter, Acetylcholine was steadily getting worse. I think of him often, but I was reminded of how much he suffered before death after seeing this painting.  

Growing up watching bob ross re-runs at a bowling alley daycare led me to admire landscape paintings. Still, I cannot see anything else while looking at this painting. If you keep silent, it seems art can indeed be anything, such as all religions are the same. If they stay quiet, they are all the same. 

The abstract invites the viewer to participate, and one can not exist without the other. You live, I exist, The paintings exist, and the painters existed—an abstract thought.