The naturalist tendency seen in the depictions of painting throughout the history of art has turned into abstraction and an abstract aesthetic understanding in the context of contemporary approaches and has created a new power of expression in the works of the artists. While the inner and outer contour, which is one of the basic elements of painting in the designs made against the observation of nature, has always gained importance and used in naturalist art, the works of the inner and outer contour have disappeared into abstraction or abstract tendency in the works independent of the figure and without the observation of nature. This situation distinguished from the aesthetics of naturalist attitude the “Beauty” in these works of art. A painting made in the direction of abstraction and abstract aesthetic understanding aimed to analyze the conditions that make the depiction a work of art, not the conditions in which it appears. The artist, who takes abstraction impulse as a starting point instead of empathy impulse, has created a new space where aesthetic pleasure is sensed. In this study, abstract-figurative works of Bedri Karayağmurlar are tried to be examined through Wilhelm Wörringer's theory of “abstraction and empathy”. In the first part, information about “abstraction and empathy” theory is given and the development of abstract painting in art history is discussed. In the second part, the artist's approach to abstraction, as well as technical, form and color elements in his abstract-figurative works are evaluated. In the conclusion, in the paintings of painter Bedri Karayağmurlar, where expression is more important than content, the ambiguity of the line between abstraction and abstraction is focused on and the harmony between abstraction and empathy.

Abstract art, Wilhelm Wörringer, “Abstraction and Empathy”, Bedri Karaagmurlar, abstract-figurative painting.