ArtGraph · the painting
The Six Dimensions
Every abstract painting can be read on six dimensions. These are the six.
- Texture
- How far the paint rises off the canvas. flat → heavy
- Form
- Whether edges declare themselves or dissolve. diffuse → defined
- Color Range
- How much of the spectrum the work reaches for. One note, or many. narrow → broad
- Mood
- The register the work holds you in. somber → bright
- Abstraction
- How far it has travelled from representation. literal → abstract
- Palette
- The pigments themselves, named. Not a range but the actual colors. the sixth — it fills the shape rather than making it
Together they are the Taxonomy of Abstraction — the half of the system that reads the painting itself. The other two cards read the encounter.
None of them is a score. Flat and heavy are both places to stand, and the painting decides which.
Seeing six dimensions scored separately is not the same as seeing them as a whole.
That is what the shape does. Five dimensions make it — each one pulling a corner further out or letting it fall back. The sixth fills it, in the painting’s own pigments at their own values, nothing invented and nothing blended.
Look across enough paintings and you will start to recognize the shapes that grip you.
Where It Lives
Wall, light, scale — and why bigger is not more presence
The Feeling
What a painting does to you, and what you are asking it to do