I've really enjoyed reading the book Sparks of
Genius, which in describing a number of thinking tools in a dozen or so
chapters, has the apt subtitle "schooling the imagination." I've posted
previously about observation
and emotion
as the basis for discovery.
Abstraction in the book is described as the single defining feature of the
idea or thing, arrived at by removing what's non-essential. The chapter provides
many examples - love, honor, duty and justice are abstractions of complex and
valued human qualities. Similarly, headlines, caricatures, initials and poetry
are abstractions of longer, and perhaps less descriptive in their length,
written works. Visually, Japanese
stone gardens would be an abstraction of meditative Buddhism.
One of the greatest painters in history and a pioneer of abstraction was
Pablo Picasso, who is quoted in the book as saying that "whatever is most
abstract may perhaps be the summit of reality." Likewise, math is the
physicist's reality tool. But in both cases abstraction is what is,
approached differently, eliciting
wonder.
Wayne
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