Why Abstract?

"People ask me offhand to explain to them 'all about this modern art.' They want the answer in a series of pat phrases between drinks. But . . . unless you state your thesis clearly--from the ground up, you are simply adding to the sum of confusion on the subject." So writes Minnesota-born Abstractionist Hilaire Hiler in his new book, Why Abstract? (New Directions, $2.50).

Like many of his kind, Abstractionist Hilaire Hiler (rhymes with kill-care smiler) writes more understandably than he paints. Besides teaching himself to paint. Hiler has been a saxophone player, a nightclub decorator, costume expert, Paris cafe philosopher, amateur psychoanalyst and author. He likes his present job ("serious research painting" in Santa Fe) best of all.

"And There I Was." Hiler explains just why he, and others like him. have taken to painting patches of color geometrically arranged: "I found out that if I was so interested in ... color and wanted to handle it for its own sake, and in its relation to form, I'd better let myself be as free as possible from the associations and limitations of representation."

Good-humoredly he describes why he "had to" paint his first abstraction. He set out to make a picture of two house painters in white overalls eating white-bread sandwiches next to cans of white paint against a white wall. "The thing that spoiled it was the natural color of the [painters'] hands and faces." he writes. "When I ... painted the hands and faces white also, that was even more disturbing." His final solution "was to leave out the hands and faces, and the painters, and there I was--abstract as hell!"

Farewell to Easels. Ordinary artists, who like nature's looks (though they dress her up to suit themselves), might be taken aback by Hiler's description of abstractionism as "... that final step which would enable me to have freedom from the esthetic chaos of my surroundings. ..." They would be even more annoyed to hear what Hiler thinks is in store for them. He believes that color photography has ended the day for "representational" painting. He sees the artist of the future as a "color consultant, color engineer, and industrial designer."

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