Abstract Painting Poem by Paul Hartal

She looked at the canvas
with a perplexed countenance on her face.
"I'm sorry", she said,
"but I don't understand your painting."

The artist looked tired.
"It's an abstract", he said
with a sigh of weariness in his voice.

"You mean it has no meaning? "she asked.

"No. It has meaning", replied the artist.
"Think of it as a musical parallel,
the way that music has meaning.
This particular image targets the mind,
rather than the senses.
It concerns the essence of
imaginative intrinsic form,
the potentials of built-in conditions,
instead of the exact representation
of a subject matter."

"So would you say
that your picture shows hidden,
concealed and esoteric contents? "

"Now, that is a good question", he said.
"Yes, indeed, we can describe this work
as a visual expression
of the idea of hidden qualities,
which you are able to see only
because the artist rendered them visible."