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»A shape becomes non—object (abstract) when it creates a new shape that emerges from the human spirit. Abstraction is not transformation, as some would have it. This would imply that the artistic is transformative. But the artistic is not like that. The artistic is simply formative.« In the words of Anthony Caro: »in non—object (abstract) art, art is subject—matter and not content. Significance is implicit and not explicit. The method is the painting itself.« There is nothing descriptive about such works because man can express himself only with pure shapes and pure colours. In this way, non—object (abstract) works do not literally describe and, in this way, we escape into the artistic from the ordinary, from the conventions of the manuscript, where socially agreed significance prevails over content. »Before the letters of the alphabet make up a word, there are symbols.« David Smith