One socio - historical
explanation that has been offered for the growing prevalence
of the
abstract in modern
art — an
explanation linked to the name
of Theodor W. Adorno — is that such abstraction is a response to, and a reflection
of, the growing abstraction
of social relations in industrial society.
Rather they suggest possible sources and
explanations for modern
abstract art, unearthing a whole world
of beauty invisible to the naked eye.»
In her catalogue essay, Poddar provided partial
explanation for suggestive pictorial elements in Gaitonde's abstractions by citing a specialist in South Asian
art, critic Richard Bartholomew, who maintained that traditional Indian miniatures were not purely figurative, but were composed
of literary and
abstract elements.4 Gaitonde then might have been alluding to our necessity to «see» something in the picture, even when there is nothing objective or graphic there because, intuitively, we attempt to make sense out
of unfamiliar patterns trying to connect them with what we already know.