An obvious counterexample to this which speaks to the power of abstract art as a memorial is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial by Maya Lin which is an incredibly powerful piece of abstract public memorial art, and very near the Lincoln memorial so well worth a visit for anyone who finds themselves in that part of Washington DC. I personally admire Lincoln greatly but of the two I found visiting the Vietnam Veterans memorial a far more moving experience.

Secondly I would say the fact that they provoke thought about what they represent (rather than say Mount Rushmore in particular which is a profoundly superficial public monument) is precisely part of the value of abstract art. The Lincoln Memorial says Lincoln was a great man. OK cool. Anyone who has studied American history knows that.

When I first saw an image of the Taj Mahal, I had no idea it is a memorial, I thought/assumed it was a classical temple akin to the Parthenon. At least as a kid growing up in California it seemed classic but also abstract and alien compared to the strict right angles, rectangular platforms and formulaic columns of similarly revered but much older European/Mediterranean structures.

> I thought/assumed it was a classical temple akin to the Parthenon

Despite not knowing the details, you knew it was designed to revere or commemorate something even if you did not know the details.

Sure, and I took the same from photos of obelisks, the Washington monument, and these Yugoslavian monuments. i thought you’re arguing it’s apparent from the form what is being commemorated/revered, versus the Yugoslavian monuments that are harder to read, and I am disagreeing with that.

I think the only monuments that are actually obvious are literal selections like statues, or Lincoln Memorial which is labeled in large capital letters exactly what is commemorated and why.

Otherwise all I can tell is “this building is special because its purpose is not easily apparent (and people don’t seem to fit inside it?)”

Perhaps that was intentional, or came from a collective subconscious desire to commemorate, yet also to forget and move on.

Interwar abstract art such as cubism had twisted and distorted figures, some was a reaction to the twisted and broken bodies of the veterans of WW1. Hitler hated that style of art because he saw it as disparaging veterans, war-glorifier as he was.

It would make sense that a ‘progressive’ regime would want to break with traditionalism and create its own novel style of monument. You see this trend in a lot of postwar aesthetic movements, like the failed housing projects of modernism. They don’t glorify anything; they exist imposingly and have a strong bias to function. Yet this itself is dehumanizing in its own way.

Tl;dr: traditional aesthetics glorify the nation and the state, including its human flaws. Abstract art tends to dehumanize itself as a way to avoid these flaws, especially in the wake of major human catastrophes.

The Soviet and Fascist styles of art which glorified the party and its base straddles both sides.

I don’t think it’s evident what the Taj Mahal or Arc du Triomphe commemorate from their form, either.

It may not be clear what they commemorate, but it is evident that they commemorate.

I don’t think that’s evident, either. There’s plenty of ornate architecture that doesn’t commemorate anything.

I doubt that is true at least for the Taj Mahal and even the Arc de Triomphe.

If that's true about the Taj Mahal, it's true about the Spomenik also.

So now what? You origintally made the point to try to distingish between the power of representative art vs abstract art (although I'm struggling to understand what is more representative about the Taj Mahal and the Arc de Triomphe than these also).

to me as Italian it is evident that Arc du Triomphe it's a replica and that's all I can say for sure about it

Otoh it is quite evident to me that Spomenik monuments are there to commemorate something or they would be very different

Kind of true, but those are bad examples. Wait, is Taj Mahal a monument, not a palace? Also Mount Rushmore relies on knowing the faces on it, otherwise one might assume it’s some local car dealers. Arc de Triumph is actually abstract, how would you know its purpose if you don’t know the context?

You can just as easily interpret this as the power of non-representational art to express and deal with the incomprehensible. In this case it distinguishes these from simply monuments to great leaders or the dead of some glorious battle.

I don’t know about that - do you know which triumph the Arc de Triomphe commemorates? Isn’t it just as much seen in a meme form as an example of just ‘grand classical European architecture’, divorced from its Napoleonic imperialistic origins and not considered in terms of the fact that the French defeat of Russia and Austria at Austerlitz, at the cost of thousands of lives, and leading to the fall of Vienna, which it was commissioned for, was not a politically neutral event.

Does the fact that the French tomb of the unknown soldier from World War I was created beneath it change the meaning of the arch?

It seems to me it’s a pretty complex, abstract object whose story isn’t easily reduced to a simple meme either.

The guy refers to himself in the third person? Lmao.