India, Aug. 21 -- When people say, with a twinge of frustration, that they "don't get modern art", they're probably referring to abstract work. Jackson Pollock's splotches, Piet Mondrian's geometrics, SH Raza's Bindu, Nasreen Mohamedi's grid patterns. There's no story playing out (or is there?). Is there a focus, or is it just some tricky Rorschach test you didn't prepare for?

The art world refers to abstraction as the quality of existing as, or representing, an idea or feeling. It's not meant to be realistic. And Indian artists have played with that idea with rich results. Look through abstract art over the decades, and you'll see styles emerge, just like with figurative art and photography. There's no single, fixed language - and yet i...