October 25, 2004

Anxiety of influence  

Four-year-old artist Marla Olmstead is apparently a prodigy (though her father doesn't like that word) when it comes to abstract art. Provocatively, she seems to be passing through periods that roughly correspond to major abstract artists of the 20th century: Pollock, Miró, Kandinsky. The thing is, I don't view these artists' styles as necessary phases in the history of art, but as works of great individual personality. What I mean is, you could very well have seen abstraction progress through the twentieth century if Kandinsky had never lived -- it might look little different, but it would still be abstraction. There are so many ways to abstract, and these great artists have influenced the historical meaning of abstraction.

So it seems strange to me that Marla would mimic these particular styles, given the fact that her father has never taken her to an art museum. Why should her development follow the happily accidental directions we took in the 20th century? I suppose we could build a theory of subconscious influence pervading every part of society, but that seems implausible as an explanation for the genius we're reading about here.

(By the way, I have a bone to pick with the article's lack of clarity on the question of the abstract vs the non-representational. All representational art is an abstraction -- it's just a matter of degree. And it seems to me non-representational art (see for example the work of at least two of the three artists mentioned above) can't be abstract at all, because it isn't abstracting from anything. The article is equally unclear on the quesion of whether Marla's work is meant to be representational or not -- it sounds like the titles for her works are picked after the fact, and in par by her parents.)

Comments
Patsy Erickson  {November 12, 2008}

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