Dimensions of meaning

Andrew Harrison

pp. 51-76

in: Andrew Harrison (ed), Philosophy and the visual arts, Berlin, Springer, 1987

Abstract

This is in many ways a highly schematic paper, more strategy than tactics. In what follows I shall try to explore those senses of "abstract" and "abstraction" that overlap and interact with each other across a far wider field than that of "abstract art". My claim is that abstraction in art does have a definite location within that field and that how to place it can take us a long way towards understanding what abstraction in art is.