ABSTRACT
If you look at a painting, are you looking through a window to another world or are you simply looking at the composition of colour and shape on a flat canvas? If you see a painting as a window, you might be concerned with what is going on behind the window: who the people are, say, and why they had their picture painted. You might ask about the historical significance of, for example, the skull on the shelf or even why the painter chose that particular subject in the first
place. If, however, a picture is only a flat canvas, then you would ask other questions: about how the tones contrast, or how the shapes relate to one another. You might just be struck by the beautiful range of colours.
