CONCLUSION OF ESSAY TITLED: The journey/enquiry to realize the essence in relation to the works of Malevich, Mondrian O’Keeffe and Agnes Martin.

Mondrian's process is similar to Malevich’s, as they both get rid of observed visual information and embrace intuition through simplification and abstraction. Malevich reveals the essence by replacing natural shapes and forms of landscape to geometric elements of observed industrial scenes that break up into solid shapes and are brought into focus by enlargement. He shifts from observation to creating from feeling with color, line and shape as his language. For example, Malevich paints the Black Square and Red Square in 1914, which consists of a black square and a smaller, tilted red square under it on a white background, to painting Black Square in 1915 which only includes a black square in the middle of the square canvas with a white background. This conveys his elimination of visual information and heightens the focus on simplicity.

Mondrian depicts a tree in a series of paintings ‘abstraction of tree process’. The tree is a physical manifestation of the essence because everything derives from it. Through this process the journey of Mondrian from painting a literal subject to abstract representations is apparent. The artist achieves this through working with the same subject and manipulating some of its elements each time. For example, the spaces between the branches gradually become geometrical shapes and the branches become their borders. This minimization reveals the essence through the depiction of less physical, recognizable and experiential references. The positioning of considered parallel and horizontal black lines on the canvas challenges the viewer to retrieve the vital visual information from his mind for the completion of the work.

O’Keeffe comes closer to the essence by homing in, usually with a flower. In the close-up of her flower the colors and shapes the magnification creates, shows more of its nature and the feeling it evokes which comes closer to the essence. For example, moving from ‘White Rose with Larkspur No. 2’ which portrays a white rose in the bottom half of the piece, facing the viewer with most of the petals touching the edge of the canvas, to painting ‘Abstraction white rose’ which through the title shows us that O'Keeffe depicts the center of the rose facing the viewer from close. The edge of the rose is not shown in the canvas, connoting that a complete illustration of the rose is of no importance to the artist. In that way O'Keefe places more emphasis on the feeling of her subject and not its literal depiction. The border of the canvas doesn’t imply an ending.

Agnes Martin’s journey is guided by a meditative and clear state of mind. She uses abstraction to portray beauty, innocence and inspiration which for her is essence. The process of drawing and painting the pieces necessitate calm and repetitive actions, which again bring her into a meditative state. This state of being, requires the removal of external information and distractions, bringing one closer to stillness. For example, ‘the tree’ which is a white canvas with washed out grey horizontal stripes made up of repeated vertical lines, consists of only two colors and two types of line.

The essence is naturally everything, but, what we experience is the essence in its physical and mental manifestations. Malevich, Mondrian, O’Keeffe and Martin move closer to the essence, meaning away from the physical and mental distractions. All four artists worked towards the same aim through their own individual pathways.