� � �First, in its more general meaning, abstraction refers to any simplification or idealization of form. If a painter looks at an irregularly shaped pond in a landscape and decides to depict it as a perfectly curved oval, he or she has abstracted the given appearance of the pond by converting it into regular, geometric form. Second, in its more specific meaning, abstraction refers to art that has no model in nature at all--for example, the art of pure geometry. An abstract artist in this sense might paint a perfect oval, without ever looking at or thinking of a pond in a landscape.