Bang on Perception and Composition
October 2nd, 2007
Three illustrations by Molly Bang from Picture This (1991).
“Pictures are two-dimensional, whereas we live in three-dimensional space, with many more dimensions added by our passions and intelligence. When we translate or reform our multifaceted experiences into this flat, rectangular format, we play with space” (p114).
“[This] picture contains a space all its own. We exist outside the picture” (p114):
“until our eyes fix on and ‘capture’ an object inside it like prey — but the prey in turn draws us to itself inside the picture space” (p116):
“The edges and corners of the picture are the edges and corners of the picture-world” (p88).
“I find that when I cover up the red shape in [the above] picture, the space becomes much flatter. It’s only when I see the red box break out of the frame that I’m aware that the other two objects can escape it, too” (p88).
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:59 pm
I’m sure you must be intimately familiar with De Stijl, but in case you aren’t I’d recommend giving it some study. I think it’s relevant to at least a quarter of the entries you’ve posted (this one reminded me of it).
By abstracting subject matter to its most basic visual elements, its artists believed they could create a perfect portrait. An image was only absolutely honest when the quanta of the thing or idea it depicted weren’t obscured, revealing the reality behind reality and all that.
I only recently found out that Mondrian’s work in the style was ultimately a theosophical exercise. I probably should have known that.
October 3rd, 2007 at 6:46 pm
I am not intimately familiar — in particular, the bit about Mondrian. Any recommended reading?
October 4th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Here’s an article about how mysticism steered his work throughout his life:
http://newcriterion.com:81/archive/14/sept95/hilton.htm
October 12th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
A critical dimension in any form of art is light and I found this in evidence in glass sculptures at CMOG; particularly the works of Stanislav Libensky & Jaroslava Brychtova. A good write up can be found here. Libensky is quoted here — “I adhere to the principle of first progressing from the simple to the more complicated and, in the next phase, from the more complicated to the most simple.” (Unfortunately, 2 dimensional cyberspace does not lend itself to displaying the interplay of light and matter).
August 23rd, 2011 at 4:40 pm
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