ABSTRACT
Art presents a challenge and an opportunity for study in cognitive science (Espinel, 1994; 1996; 1998). This research concerns the creation of abstract art. One that is supposed to impact the viewer without recognizable, without memory-evoking images (Schapiro, 1980). This ideal was achieved by Jackson Pollock, who with it pioneered modern American art. His paintings, tangles of smears of paint on canvas, have been explained as unconscious expressions (Schapiro, 1980 & O Connor FV, Thaw EV, (Eds.), 1978). An Autonoetic Hypothesis on creativity would suggest otherwise. Here is a study of a painting representative of Pollock s abstracts, Lavender Mist, at the National Gallery of Art (Figure 1).
