There's a common principle in art that it's good to make your audience work for a reward. You can do that by packing in a lot of fine detail, so they have to w

There's a common principle in art that it's good to make your audience work for a reward. You can do that by packing in a lot of fine detail, so they have to work to explore it. You can do it intellectually by including a lot of cultural and historical references only some people will get. You can also do it by leaving out and fuzzing detail, so they have to work to make sense of what they're seeing - taking a detour through various aesthetic associations along the way. Beyond impressionism you end up with abstract expressionism, which is all associative and evocative aesthetics, and no figurative subject to recognise. And that still works for a surprisingly large number of people.