I’ve been contemplating how abstract paintings are two opposing things: an intuitive experience and a visual puzzle. I believe attention to both is vital to our understanding of visual art.

We intuitively know what we do and don’t like in a painting. Often we don’t really know exactly why. But there’s no denying when it’s right….or clearly wrong.

Unity and Differences are the opposing forces of an abstract design. Both are absolutely needed. Without unity, the abstract falls apart into disparate pieces that don’t relate to one another - confusing and cacophonous. Unity can be created with a harmonious color palette or repeated motifs. But without a good helping of differences, this can be pretty boring.

My favorite painting book - “The Simple Secret of Better Painting” by Greg Albert introduces the importance of “differences”. It discusses how introducing differences in composition gives a pleasing tension to visual art. It makes complete sense and I believe you can recognize these differences in every part of a painting.

A 3 value painting is most interesting when the Papa, Mama, Baby framework is used, (Alot of one, a medium amount of another and just a tiny bit of the third value.) The play of color temperature - warm colors vs cool colors is especially interesting when one dominates. The size of shapes can make a painting static when they’re all a similar size, or dynamic when the shapes differ widely. These differences, (and more! Think transparency vs opaqueness, smooth vs textured, thin vs thick lines, etc), bring interest to a painting, tempting your eyes to linger.

So what’s the proper amount of unity vs difference in a painting? That is the personal part of art appreciation. How they’re paired - the balance of one against the other is what creates our personal aesthetic. Experimentation with each is the glorious ongoing struggle to find our own recipe that defines our voice as an artist or our preferences as a collector. And understanding why we prefer one painting over another is enlightening - enriching our art collecting or art creating experience.

Bring this with you on your next museum trip, or art making experience and see if the paradox of Unity vs. Differences gives clarity to your search for that perfect painting.