An Abstract Mess

Two points of view:

“Art should look like art, trees and flowers and people, not weird shapes and splotches of color all smeared together.”
― Jennifer Estep

“Abstract art enables the artist to perceive beyond the tangible, to extract the infinite out of the finite. It is the emancipation of the mind. It is an exploration into unknown areas.”
― Arshile Gorky

And from one of the most influential:

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.
– Pablo Picasso

We seem to be getting somewhere.

“To abstract is to draw out the essence of a matter. To abstract in art is to separate certain fundamentals from irrelevant material which surrounds them.”
― Ben Shahn

So when a photographer composes an image, choosing what goes into the frame and what does not, is he (or she), in essence, abstracting?

“Abstract means literally to draw from or separate. In this sense every artist is abstract.”
Richard Diebenkorn

I guess it only applies to artists then.

Never mind, sometimes snapshots are just as enjoyable.

Sometimes, they can be Abstract too.