How to Talk About Abstract Art: A Guide for Beginners and Experienced Viewers

There are moments in museums, galleries, or endless online scrolls when we encounter abstract paintings that simply don’t register. “Why is this an artwork?” is something I often hear when someone stumbles upon a canvas painted entirely in one color.

Additionally, in today’s commercial spheres of interior design, art markets, and hobby artists, abstraction has seen a huge surge of interest. Just look at the zillions of hashtags for abstract artists on Instagram.

For some people, these works are joyful, playful, or freeing. For others, they feel empty or unresolved. And often, we are unsure whether our response says something about the artwork, or about us.

Hey there! 👋 I’m Carrie and I’m here to remind you: you’re already an artist.

Here on Artist Strong, I help creatives stop feeling like a copyist or hobbyist, so they can create their first real series of artwork and build a portfolio they’re proud of.

If you’re ready to stop the DIY learning and get the support and structure to finally draw and paint with your unique voice, I’m here to help.

Sign up and watch my workshop, How to Transform Your Ideas Into Artwork That’s Uniquely Yours. To date, thousands have joined the community. The workshop is completely free, and the link is in the description below.

Today’s conversation isn’t about deciding what is “good” or “bad” art. It’s about learning how to evaluate abstract painting with more nuance than personal taste alone, and how to ground our opinions in art history, theory, and visual language.

Abstraction Was Never About Randomness

To understand why some abstract paintings feel deeply resonant while others feel inert, it helps to remember how and why abstraction emerged in the first place.

Abstraction did not arrive fully formed, nor was it initially about decoration or surface pleasure. It evolved slowly from artists trying to solve very real problems.

Art historians generally argue that Impressionism is the first movement of abstraction. Impressionist painters loosened realism in order to capture fleeting light, atmosphere, and perception.

Cézanne pushed it further, manipulating planes.

By the early twentieth century, artists like Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Malevich were no longer interested in representing the visible world at all. They believed color, shape, and line could communicate ideas and emotions more directly than images of things.

Abstraction was an act of distillation; it was not simplification, but concentration. Every choice mattered.

Abstract Expressionism: Gesture With Stakes

Abstract Expressionism is often misunderstood as chaotic or impulsive, but it was anything but careless.

Artists like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko approached painting as a physical and psychological negotiation. Gesture became a way to record time, presence, and decision-making. Even when marks appeared spontaneous, they were guided by deep experience, editing, and restraint.

These works hold tension. You can feel the push and pull between control and release, between structure and collapse. The paintings ask something of the viewer: not in the form of recognizable imagery, but through scale, rhythm, color relationships, and spatial pressure.

What mattered wasn’t whether the painting looked composed in a traditional sense, but whether it felt earned.

When Abstraction Becomes a Look

Over time, abstraction moved from radical inquiry into the mainstream of art education, galleries, and markets. What was once disruptive became teachable, repeatable, and recognizable.

As abstraction spread, its visual language began to separate from its original philosophical and emotional stakes. Gestural marks, loose compositions, and layered color could be adopted without necessarily engaging the deeper questions that once drove those choices.

This is where abstraction often shifts: from exploration to aesthetic, from inquiry to appearance.

The Complicated Meaning of “Decorative”

This shift is often summarized by a single word: decorative.

In the fine art world, decorative is frequently used as a pejorative. But that framing deserves closer examination. Decorative work is not inherently unskilled, lazy, or meaningless. Decorative art can be beautiful, calming, joyful, and deeply satisfying.

What distinguishes decorative abstraction is not quality, but priority.

Decorative work tends to prioritize:

• Harmony over tension
• Visual pleasure over inquiry
• Resolution over risk

When abstraction becomes primarily decorative, it may no longer ask questions or sustain prolonged engagement. For some viewers, that absence of stakes is precisely what creates a feeling of emotional distance, even if the work is visually appealing.

Have you heard this term “decorative” before? How was it used? Tell me more in the comments below.

Contemporary Abstraction: Beyond the Fine Art World

This conversation becomes even more complex when we look beyond the traditional fine art ecosystem.

Today, abstract painting flourishes in interior design, online marketplaces, social media platforms, and direct-to-consumer art spaces. Many contemporary artists working outside the fine art world draw inspiration, consciously or not, from Abstract Expressionism: gestural marks, layered color, looseness, and improvisation.

But the context has changed.

Rather than emerging from philosophical inquiry or historical dialogue, much of this work is created to live comfortably within spaces. It supports atmosphere rather than challenging it. In homes, studios, and workplaces, abstract paintings often function as visual companions: enhancing mood without demanding attention.

This accessibility is not a flaw. For many people, abstract art becomes a welcoming way to re-engage with creativity, to live with art without feeling intimidated, or to begin making art themselves without needing permission or expertise.

One of the biggest phrases I hear on repeat from Artist Strong artists is, “I just want to make people happy with my art.” This form of abstraction is often created with a focus on pleasure and pleasing.

In this sense, abstraction has become a shared visual language, one that invites participation rather than reverence.

Why Decorative Abstraction Is So Popular Right Now

The rise of decorative abstraction reflects broader cultural shifts.

Interior design trends favor neutral palettes, organic forms, and gentle visual rhythms. Abstract paintings integrate easily into these environments. At the same time, social media has normalized art-making as a personal, therapeutic, and expressive practice, often emphasizing process over critique.

For many contemporary artists, abstraction offers freedom:

• Freedom from representation
• Freedom from “getting it right”
• Freedom from art-world gatekeeping

These artists are not necessarily trying to participate in a lineage of Abstract Expressionism or non-objective theory. They are responding to intuition, aesthetics, lifestyle, or the simple desire to create something that feels good to make and live with.

That intention matters, and it deserves respect.

Where Tension Can Get Lost

At the same time, widespread adoption of abstract aesthetics can blur important distinctions.

When abstraction becomes primarily decorative, it may no longer engage with:

• Visual risk
• Compositional struggle
• Conceptual inquiry
• Historical dialogue

The work can resolve too easily: pleasant, harmonious, immediately legible. For viewers who are drawn to friction, ambiguity, or sustained looking, this can feel unsatisfying, even if the work is technically sound.

Often, the discomfort isn’t about judgment, it’s about misaligned expectations. A viewer may sense that something is missing but lack the language to articulate it.

Two Different Roles for Abstract Art

One way to approach this without hierarchy is to acknowledge that abstract art now serves multiple roles.

Some abstract paintings are meant to:

• Support a space
• Create atmosphere
• Offer visual rest

Others are meant to:

• Provoke tension
• Ask questions
• Sustain prolonged engagement

Neither role is morally superior (though some from the world of fine arts may say so). But they are not interchangeable. Confusion often arises when we expect one kind of experience from work designed for another.

Naming this distinction allows us to appreciate decorative abstraction for what it offers, while still making room for deeper critical engagement with non-objective work that seeks more than harmony alone.

How to Evaluate Abstract Art Beyond Personal Taste

Rather than asking, Do I like this?, we can ask more useful questions, questions grounded in the elements and principles of art.

Consider:

• Color: Are there intentional temperature shifts, contrasts, or relationships?
• Composition: Does the eye move with purpose, or wander without direction?
• Rhythm and repetition: Are patterns building meaning or merely filling space?
• Balance and tension: Is there visual pressure anywhere in the work?
• Unity and variety: Does the painting resolve too easily, or does it sustain engagement?

Randomness is not a flaw. But unresolved randomness often is.

These questions don’t lead to a single correct answer. They simply give us a shared language, one that respects both the artist’s effort and the viewer’s experience.

Making Space for Different Responses

It’s important to say this clearly: someone else’s joy in a painting does not invalidate your lack of response to it. Nor does your critique invalidate their pleasure.

Art does not function the same way for everyone, and it shouldn’t.

What matters is that our opinions are informed, not dismissive. Curious, not cruel. Rooted in visual literacy rather than authority or insecurity.

Many artists who work abstractly know how much thought, editing, and care goes into every decision. That awareness naturally shapes how we look at others’ work, not to judge it harshly, but to look for evidence of negotiation, intention, and risk.

Why This Conversation Matters

Learning how to talk about abstract art, especially when it doesn’t move us, builds confidence as viewers and artists alike. It reminds us that we are allowed to trust our perceptions, while also deepening them through study and reflection.

You don’t have to love every abstract painting. But if you’re going to critique, or defend it, doing so with the language of art history and theory keeps the conversation alive, generous, and meaningful.

And perhaps most importantly, it gives us permission to say:
I don’t feel anything here, and I’m curious why.

That curiosity is where real engagement begins.

Thank you so much for watching. I’d love to hear how you experience abstract art, both in galleries and on Instagram. Tell me what comes up for you in the comments below.

Then please like and subscribe to Artist Strong, articles like these are created because our community asks for them!

Remember: proudly call yourself an artist.
Together, we are Artist Strong.