How Abstract Expressionists Help Me Survive Old Age - Part Four .
Modern abstract paintings probably emerged in about 1910 or a little later. Artists like Vassily Kandinsky, Sonia Delauney or Gabrielle Minter may have been the first modern abstract painters. Yet whoever was the first of these artists there's always been a problem with abstract art. Many parents look at abstract art and say, "Oh my five year old could do something like that."
Whether this is true or not, I deal with that objection or comment by doing a line drawing over the abstract work that I first draw. In other words there's two stages to my art work. First, I do an abstract drawing. Then on top of my abstract work I do a line drawing of a landscape or a portrait or whatever. My line drawings show some skill and I don't think any five year old and could draw as well as I do. Yet even here I'm willing to admit that there may be out there some very young artist that could put my work to shame.
After all, I've met many young teenagers who can do better art work than I can. In any case the American abstract painters who surfaced in the 1940's and later have impressed me. This doesn't mean that they're the only ones that have. The Dutchman Piet Mondrian, the Quebecois painters like Paul Emile Borduas and Jean Paul Riopelle, and French artists like Henri Michaud were also very good abstract artists..
Still right now the American abstract expressionists have made my life a lot more fun and also made it easier for me to do art work. They've given me a reason to go on drawing and painting. And I thank them for the work they did many years ago. They've been an inspiration to me as I wander through old age.
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