The conception of abstract in eastern and western art and comparison of their effects on each other

In historical process each civilization had produced visual images in accordance with their worldview. Each culture has developed an intellectual "way of seeing" shaped by the parameters and sanctus of the context in which the culture-in-question had existed. Each culture's way of seeing and interpretation of being also construct the language of the art of that period. East and West's approaches to the image constituted their turnout. Similarity between form and meaning, and the expression of the figuration in art emerged in historical process in either figurative or abstract ways. In the same centuries, while in the East the sacred art shaped the abstract by the means of divine "tranquility" of contemplation, in the West –stemming from the "mimesis" approach– the sacred art emerged as "expressionist", the imaginary and perspectival description of a reality. The invention of photography in the West in the 20th century caused disengagement with nature and accordingly the change in the process of interpreting the subject has also changed the way of seeing; as a consequence of which a new visual figuration and different pictural quests have been come out. Liberality in the form fostered new trends and thoughts leading to the abstract. The formal elements like color, line, image, and space which replaced the figure began to appear on the paintings of the artists as the main explanandum of a metaphysical expression in the 20th century. In East and West, who do not experience historical periods synchronically, the "abstract thought" is a "spiritual" view that came into existence by the philosophy of "seeing the invisible" and a departure from naturalist view that aims to design the pure. In this study, the arts of both cultures have been evaluated by taking their geography, history, culture and religion into consideration in order to avoid falling into the mistake of anachronism. What is meant by the East is the countries on the Asian continent titled as either Middle Eastern or Near Eastern countries, taking place on the eastern part of the sphere. Abstract thought had been developed in these countries, and the art had advanced in the same direction. While making comparisons, this study also refers to and deals partly with the Chinese, Japanese and Indian arts among the eastern arts. The main issues of this study are the facts that Islamic art encompass a vast area and that as a manifestation of its worldview non-figurative approach dominates Islamic art, and the comparisons to the Westerns abstract art have been made mainly on this basis. This thesis is composed of 3 chapters. In the first chapter the ways of seeing in both cultures as they emerged in their historical development have been analyzed. The perception of figuration and mathematics introduced to the West a perspectival viewpoint, while to the East an abstract one. By analyzing this issue together with other related phenomena, the concepts in both cultures of image, imagination, visual speech, unity and abundance (vahdet-kesret), emptiness and fullness have been evaluated comparatively within the context of way of seeing. In the second chapter titled "The Way to the Abstract", abstract conception in Eastern and Western philosophy has been studied with reference to the concept of "einfuhlung". This chapter also touches on the issues as the emergence of abstract art in the West in conjunction with modernism, and the relation of Eastern art to the matter of figure. Accordingly inclination towards stylization and symbolic transmission has been underlined. In the third chapter, the philosophical differences in the formation of Eastern and Western art have been analyzed along with the questions of whether historical precedence of Eastern art has affected the Western art and whether Eastern art can be considered as composing the formal reference of the Western art. In this context, theoreticians of abstract art, their philosophy and works have been investigated in comparison with the works of Islamic art, and the main lines of thought that were grouped under the titles constituting the inner dynamics of the abstract art –namely "spirituality", "seeing the invisible", "phenomenon of being–pure form" and "geometry" – have also been dealt with. Keywords: Way of seeing, Image, Spirituality, Seeing the invisible, Geometry