Aspects of realism
Lauri Levanto
to understand modern painting.
I can't teach that, but I can tell how I understand.
The Egyptians could make strong, lifelike 3D sculptures. Why their
reliefs
are then as shematic as their paintings. Did the sculptor lose his
skill?
No, the features are sometimes even more delicately sculpted.
They just wanted to keep the wall flat.
They were not creating false windows to the outside world, like
renaissance
painters. Much of the modern painting has the same urge.
The artist wants to make a picture on canvas, not behind it.
What is realism? The perspective image is like a window.
The landscape is seen from one point. That is not what we
normally see. The people walking around a coctail party
appear all about the same size. The one at double distance is
not half of the heigth. Have you ever *really* seen
a 3½ foot basketball player?
One must usually concentrate to notice the perspective.
That is why some call it a skill.
Isn't it then more realistic to paint a coctail party
with all people in the same size?
When you walk in your living room, the view changes at every step,
but the objects remain the same. Picasso studied seriously
how to paint an object as it is versus as it seen.
Look at Gericault's 'Medusa's raft' (1819). It tells the story
by traditional drawing. If yoy take a black and white
copy, not much is lost. Then look at Turner's 'Slavers throwing
overboard the dead and dying' (1840). The scene is as horrible as G's,
but this is told by colors. If you squint your eyes so that
the details are blurred, not much of the picture is lost.
We are accustomed to traditional rendering
-even more that the 19th century people -as we are surrounded
by photos and camera images. There are other concepts of image,
however. Many artists intentionally leave the rendering to
photographers,
they want to do something else.
to the question "what is realism" I have at least three answers.
1. What is rendered is as it looks (superficial realism)
2. What is rendered is what it is (material realism)
3. What is rendered is what you sense while seeing (impressionism)
If I want to paint a tea-kettle, I have to select of these aspects
What it looks (shiny), what it is (hot), what it feels (delicious).
When you look at Munch's "Scream" you can reckognise the horror,
not the landscape. It was not about landscape. With a beautiful sunset
background
the onlooker were sistracted. With many other works
it is not so easy to catch the point.
Very little of the 20th century art does touch me.
I do not blame the artists, however,
of my own limitations.
During the modernist revolution around 1910-1920 the
artists in Paris challenged each other
to outwit the rest. Some pieces remain as good art,
fortunately most are forgotten.
Of course one must ask why art should be realistic at any sense,
but that is another story.
-lauri
Paul Mesken
wrote:
> The perspective image is like a window.
>The landscape is seen from one point. That is not what we
>normally see. The people walking around a coctail party
>appear all about the same size. The one at double distance is
>not half of the heigth. Have you ever *really* seen
>a 3½ foot basketball player?
>One must usually concentrate to notice the perspective.
>That is why some call it a skill.
>
Very true, the system of linear perspective (made popular in the
Renaissance) is simply yet another method to represent spatial
relationships. The mere fact that photos work the same way doesn't
necessarily mean that this is the way in which humans experience the
visual world.
We humans build up a mental representation of our environment based
upon "snap shots" (like in Cubism :-) from our eyes and a huge amount
of "post processing" and elaboration. We don't build up some kind of
perspective photo from our environment. If I stand before my car and
recognize it then I have a pretty good idea how it looks from all
sides, a photo doesn't show this (it only shows one side) and therefor
is not a depiction of what I experience when I see my car (or the
photo of it).
>Isn't it then more realistic to paint a coctail party
>with all people in the same size?
>When you walk in your living room, the view changes at every step,
>but the objects remain the same. Picasso studied seriously
>how to paint an object as it is versus as it seen.
>
Likewise, the head, its eyes, hands and feet are typically experienced
as bigger than they really are because they are in the focus of our
attention. It therefor isn't wrong to exaggerate certain features in
size (like in those japanes comics :-)
>to the question "what is realism" I have at least three answers.
>1. What is rendered is as it looks (superficial realism)
>2. What is rendered is what it is (material realism)
>3. What is rendered is what you sense while seeing (impressionism)
>
There are two major problems with realism but both come down to the
same thing.
First, there's something (whatever) out there that impinges its image
on our senses, let's say a chair. It's something others can sense as
well and all agree upon the fact that it is a chair. If I choose to
make a realistic work of art about this chair then I need to find a
representation that is recognizable as being a representation for the
chair. One might argue that the most realistic would be if I would
completely copy it but then it wouldn't be art anymore ofcourse, it
would be another chair. All representational art is a symbolic stand
in (or a depiction) of something else. There are culturally agreed
upon means to represent a chair "realistically". It comes down to that
there is a "language" in which we represent that what we can sense.
The expressions in the visual language stay quite close to what they
represent and are therefor more intuitive than spoken language. It is
true that different cultures can have different visual languages for
realistic depiction but these languages can be learned in a jiffy (the
story of those guys on New Guinee who had to learn how to "read" a
photo before they could see what it depicted is a fine example).
Secondly, there's the meaning (or what something is experienced like).
Here the problem is that we need to represent something non-visual
(our feelings) in a visual domain. Here too we have culturally defined
visual languages, shadows are gloomy, radiating colors depict
happiness, etc. These languages (which are not very strict and can be
elaborated upon) should not be perceived as some strait jacket, the
restrictions are actually what makes art interesting. After all : we
don't invent our own language, we learn the existing one but it is our
use of it that is important. We might add to our own spoken language
and use it in any way we want but we still use an institutional tool
to express ourselves with.
So, if you ask what realistic art is then it really depends who you
ask. Some might find Matisse more realistic than Rembrandt. We
ofcourse all know that funny anekdote of a man saying to Picasso that
he should paint more realistic and beautifull women upon which Picasso
asked him for an example. The man showed Picasso a photo of his wife
which he carried in his wallet. Picasso said his wife was quite small
and flat too :-)
Paul Mesken
>Art does not have to be realist to a ruled line, or to the smallest
>pixel point,
>but if it is abstract and has the ambition to be important, then it should
>have
>a language we can learn the meat of before it goes out of fashion.
>Thur
There's something to say for this. After all, who would want to read a
novel in a completely new language one has never heard about and of
which there are no dictionaries?
OTOH a piece of art can also be enjoyed for what it is, it has become
the object in that case and no longer a representation, an object that
can be made into art again by the viewer who gives it a meaning (if
desired). But this ofcourse means the artist has completely failed if
his/her goal was to bring over some idea or message ("But it was about
Iraque!", the artist exclaimed. "To you maybe, to me it's a nice
yellow color field with blue smears through it. It's big too and goes
nice with the rest of the furniture" :-)
Nikolaus Maack
> What we need is a 'language' or a commonly held set of
> requirements for a picture so that the art is not "what is it,
> and what is it saying?"
Yuck. Sounds to me like you want all art to be as easy as the ugly, fat
girl in my grade nine math class. She'd spread her legs for anyone.
Why should all art be so cheap and accessible? Some of us prefer a
little more challenge in our sexlives, and in our artlives.
Forget your "commonly held set of requirements". There is no "universal
language" that we can all understand. If there was such a thing, we
wouldn't be human beings -- we'd all be identical electric outlets, and
art would be a plug.
I don't know about you, but I like mystery, complexity, and variety.
It's not always about beauty, delighting the senses, or any of that shit.
> When art does not delight the eye then it's very being as
> art is questionable.
Nonsense. Some of the best art I've seen is repulsive and creepy. I
remember seeing a stunning photograph at the National Gallery. It was a
picture of a dead naked woman. She'd been cut open and stitched back
together again by a coroner. The photograph was EXTREMELY unpleasant to
look at. It didn't help that the naked woman was gorgeous. I still
remember this photograph and have great respect for it.
There was another photo I fell in love with. An enormously fat man had
taken a picture of his own hairy ass and blown the photo up so that it
took up the space of an entire wall. While the people I was with
thought this was disgusting, I thought the picture was hilarious, and
wished I could take it home with me. I'd hang it over the couch. It
would confuse people. I would be happy.
To this day, I am tempted to follow this photographer's lead, and
photograph my own hairy, fat ass and hang the picture on the wall.
> Art that is solely a coded message
> from one intellectual to another should find another label.
I agree. But art that is merely "pretty" is equally mundane.
> Since the era of the Post Modernist challenge to our concepts
> of what art is, there seems to have been a total confusion, so
> that arguments on this ng and seemingly everywhere else art is
> discussed are useless because no-one can come up with a
> logical system to define art even in a very loose way.
Post modern thought has taught us the following:
Everything is art. Not everything is art of value. What determines the
value? Fashion and whimsy and culture and history.
If it comes to light that I have murdered dozens of children and eaten
their brains, my paintings will instantly become extremely valuable.
What more can I say? Welcome to the world. It's stupid and it's wrong.
Have a good time, anyway.
Pacovsky
to the point were it seems to capture a moment in time, when it seems to be
alive, when it captures life, I am not talking technical skills. some
realistic pieces are lifeless. some just grab your soul and you don't know
why. and I don't think you need to understand it, I just enjoy that magical
moment.
"Lauri Levanto" <laur...@netti.fi> wrote in message
news:3E56A045...@netti.fi...
Lauri Levanto
"Thur" <a@spamless.z> wrote:
> >Art does not have to be realist to a ruled line, or to the smallest
> >pixel point,
> >but if it is abstract and has the ambition to be important, then it should
> >have
> >a language we can learn the meat of before it goes out of fashion.
> >Thur
Paul Mesken wrote:
> There's something to say for this. After all, who would want to read a
> novel in a completely new language one has never heard about and of
> which there are no dictionaries?
Good point Paul. There is something to say against it, too.
What dictionaries you have for music? I admit that a complete novel
language of some ethnic music makes difficulties. I have developed
some sense for Japanese music, after few months of active trying
I gave up with Stockhausen.
In visual arts we have a Babel confusion of languages. It took me
years to "read" Cesanne. Matisse is still Latin to me.
Like we learn our native language by assimilation, we learn the
art dialects around us.
> OTOH a piece of art can also be enjoyed for what it is, it has become
> the object in that case and no longer a representation,
> an object that
> can be made into art again by the viewer who gives it a meaning (if
> desired).
Interesting proposition! I read it so that the viewer creates a 'found
object' of it. Not unlike listening instrumental music.
* * *
Paul wrote elsewhere:
> Jazz, bebop, whatever existed before they were recognized as a
>new style. Artists don't make new -isms, critics do.
The critics write your dictionaries, then.
A reason to take them somewhat seriously. [1]
>Artists work on their own style and take notice and
>learn of those of others.
Artist 'write in their native dialect' and learn
to be bi- (multi-)lingual.
> ... to an artist it is far more interesting
> how a certain effect is achieved than what
> style it belongs to (if any).
One must keep separate the 'effect achieved' and
'the effect attepted'.
-lauri
[1] A poet friend of mine once said that
there should be typos in the ABC-books.
That is the last moment to erode
the belief in authorities.
Paul Mesken
wrote:
> "Thur" <a@spamless.z> wrote:
>
> > >Art does not have to be realist to a ruled line, or to the smallest
> > >pixel point,
> > >but if it is abstract and has the ambition to be important, then it should
> > >have
> > >a language we can learn the meat of before it goes out of fashion.
> > >Thur
>
>Paul Mesken wrote:
>> There's something to say for this. After all, who would want to read a
>> novel in a completely new language one has never heard about and of
>> which there are no dictionaries?
>
>Good point Paul. There is something to say against it, too.
>What dictionaries you have for music? I admit that a complete novel
>language of some ethnic music makes difficulties. I have developed
>some sense for Japanese music, after few months of active trying
>I gave up with Stockhausen.
>In visual arts we have a Babel confusion of languages. It took me
>years to "read" Cesanne. Matisse is still Latin to me.
>Like we learn our native language by assimilation, we learn the
>art dialects around us.
>
Luckily aesthetics don't need a dictionary. "I don't know about art
but I know what I like" :-) There are some universals ofcourse which
work everywhere, I don't believe staccato music will be perceived as
"laid back" music anywhere (Ah! The Sabre Dance makes me completely
relaxed :-)
>> Jazz, bebop, whatever existed before they were recognized as a
>>new style. Artists don't make new -isms, critics do.
>
>The critics write your dictionaries, then.
>A reason to take them somewhat seriously. [1]
>
Even though it might be amusing to read what critics have to say (like
philosophy has entertainment value for an agnostic Nietzsche lover
like me :-) I agree with Thur that a work of art which needs lots of
study before its intended meaning can be deciphered is not an
effective representation, one could say that skill is all about making
a representation "effective" (in that the meaning is easily and
unambiguous deciphered, ofcourse a representation implies a language).
Even though visual languages can be different for every artist there
are also some "linguas franca" which are (sub)culturally accessible.
There hardly is a reason to invent a completely different visible
language which is not intuitive if one wants to make a representation.
James Joyce in "Ulysses" showed how great the possibilities of a well
established language is.
>> ... to an artist it is far more interesting
>> how a certain effect is achieved than what
>> style it belongs to (if any).
>
>One must keep separate the 'effect achieved' and
>'the effect attepted'.
>
Hm, yeah, although I would like the "effect attempted" to be more or
less the same as the "effect achieved", at least to my own eyes :-)
Bob C
>
> to the question "what is realism" I have at least three answers.
> 1. What is rendered is as it looks (superficial realism)
> 2. What is rendered is what it is (material realism)
> 3. What is rendered is what you sense while seeing (impressionism)
>
The ultimate in realism is basically what you describe as #2, rendering
what is actually there. Because if the goal of realism is to generate in
the viewer the feeling of seeing the real scene, then the best way to do
this is to present the exact same visual information which the real
scene would. This is what the trompe l'oeil does - but it only works for
very limited subjects seen under very limited conditions.
This ultimate realism actually fools the viewer into thinking that they
are seeing the real thing. But since we can't achieve this, the next
best thing is to stimulate the viewer's imagination. This is where
realism necessarily becomes subjective - because what stimulates one
person's imagination doesn't necessarily stimulate another. Even the
most traditional of realistic painters routinely include changes from
photographic objectivity because these changes better stimulate the
imagination of the viewer.
Realize also that whether our imagination is stimulated is highly
dependent both on our expectations and the amount of work which we are
willing to put in to allow our imagination to be stimulated. Traditional
realism stimulates most imaginations with no effort on the viewer's
part, but at the same time I usually find it somewhat limiting because
I'm completely aware of the invisible barrier between my world and the
imaginary one created by the painting. With works by someone like Monet
or Van Gogh, I have to work a little harder to imagine it as real, but
once I do, there is less of a barrier. With a huge amount of
concentration I can actually eliminate the barrier completely in a
highly realistic Constable, but this is a lot of work and, because the
feeling only last a few seconds, not worth the effort except to have
done it a few times just to experience it (I think it was more of an
exercise in self-hypnosis than art appreciation).
- Bob C.
Paul Mesken
The main problem of realistic art is that the term contradicts itself.
In order for it to be considered realistic art it must be both be true
to the real life subject and be untrue to it at the same time. We
don't admire artists who become so technically skilled that they can
construct real people for their nudes (well, we do admire them but not
for being artists :-) It is the culturally defined approach to realism
in a certain medium that we admire. People are not made from paint and
are not flat and feelings are not made from words, yet we admire the
artists who can approach the human nude in the *restriction* of paint
and likewise we admire writers who approach feeling in words. It is
the translation we admire (or resent).
Carmine Rhedd
Hey Nik, I've long ago praised you're
writing skills, but I'll refresh the
bouquet for you with new kudoes - loved it!
Paul Mesken
<nikm...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>If it comes to light that I have murdered dozens of children and eaten
>their brains, my paintings will instantly become extremely valuable.
>
Well, what's stopping you? ;-)
Lauri Levanto
> >> ... to an artist it is far more interesting
> >> how a certain effect is achieved than what
> >> style it belongs to (if any).
> >
> >One must keep separate the 'effect achieved' and
> >'the effect attepted'.
> >
>
> Hm, yeah, although I would like the "effect attempted" to be more or
> less the same as the "effect achieved", at least to my own eyes :-)
Don't we all want that. For my own eyes it takes a long time to separate
the effect achieved from effect attepted. Then I have to show the piece to
someone else - preferably to a critic- to see if the effect achieved
is close to what I believed.
-lauri
Paul Mesken
wrote:
>>
Yes, this is indeed a problem. I believe that if we look at what we
just made (the effect achieved) then we "superimpose" that what we
want it to be over it (the effect attempted). Only after not having
looked at it for some time does this effect "wear off". I always use a
small mirror to look at what I just made, this solves part of the
problem.
G*rd*n
| >> >> how a certain effect is achieved than what
| >> >> style it belongs to (if any).
| >> >
| >> >One must keep separate the 'effect achieved' and
| >> >'the effect attepted'.
| >> >
| >>
| >> Hm, yeah, although I would like the "effect attempted" to be more or
| >> less the same as the "effect achieved", at least to my own eyes :-)
Lauri Levanto <laur...@netti.fi>:
| >Don't we all want that. For my own eyes it takes a long time to separate
| >the effect achieved from effect attepted. Then I have to show the piece to
| >someone else - preferably to a critic- to see if the effect achieved
| >is close to what I believed.
Paul Mesken <usu...@euronet.nl>:
| Yes, this is indeed a problem. I believe that if we look at what we
| just made (the effect achieved) then we "superimpose" that what we
| want it to be over it (the effect attempted). Only after not having
| looked at it for some time does this effect "wear off". I always use a
| small mirror to look at what I just made, this solves part of the
| problem.
Or turn the painting sideways or upside down; even if it is
"realistic" the turning will reveal new aspects of its
formal qualities.
--
(<><>) /*/
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
{ http://www.etaoin.com | latest new material 1/19/03 <-adv't
Paul Mesken
Absolutely, and let's not forget squinting the eyes a lot. This
reveals flaws in the more global tonal picture.
Paul Mesken
wrote:
Before I forget : tilting the painting is something I sometimes do.
This shortens an axis and can show imbalance in postures, especially
when a painting is quite large such flaws can easily go by undetected.
Lauri Levanto
(where copying a drawing upside down is one of the first exercises)
I draw in life class a picture upside down.(mirror way, not rotated)
It was another nice experiment.
One has to study the angle and length of each and every line.
The problem was that my teacher refused to comment it that way.
So I turned my back, she turned the picture and commented.
Then I continued...
-lauri
G*rd*n wrote:
>
> Paul Mesken <usu...@euronet.nl>:
Paul Mesken
wrote:
>When I first hearedabout,but had not laid hands on, Betty Edwards book
>(where copying a drawing upside down is one of the first exercises)
>I draw in life class a picture upside down.(mirror way, not rotated)
>It was another nice experiment.
>One has to study the angle and length of each and every line.
>
Yes, Betty Edwards book is great for the ones who want to begin
drawing or improve upon their drawing skills. I loved that excercise
where you had to draw the wrinkles in your hand :-)
Mani Deli
wrote:
>What is realism? The perspective image is like a window.
>The landscape is seen from one point.
It isn't. Realism is a characteristic of a range of images in which
the viewer can identify the object. It varies between a natural view
to degress of abstraction where there is still an identifiable object.
When Matisse attempts to draw a hand, it is identifiable by the viewer
as hand-like. To that degree it is realism unlike Rothko where there
is only a pattern.
>Isn't it then more realistic to paint a coctail party
>with all people in the same size?
>When you walk in your living room, the view changes at every step,
>but the objects remain the same. Picasso studied seriously
>how to paint an object as it is .
Picasso did conventional realisim when he chose to. There is no such
thing as an "object as it is versus as it seen" Impressionism isn't a
represention as objects are seen. It is an abstraction of reality.
However all the objects in the artwork are identifiable. Even when de
Kooning schmiers in two googoo eyes the are identifiable as an attempt
at eyes. If you see that as more realistic as a convention portrait,
fine. I don't believe most do.
>
>Look at Gericault's 'Medusa's raft' (1819). It tells the story
>by traditional drawing. If yoy take a black and white
>copy, not much is lost.
In other words a black and white photo is almost the same in your view
as this life sized painting.
>We are accustomed to traditional rendering
>-even more that the 19th century people -as we are surrounded
>by photos and camera images. There are other concepts of image,
>however. Many artists intentionally leave the rendering to
>photographers,
>they want to do something else.
Name three 19th century paintings that you would mistake for
photographs?
>to the question "what is realism" I have at least three answers.
>1. What is rendered is as it looks (superficial realism)
Why is it superficial?
>2. What is rendered is what it is (material realism)
Statement means nothing.
>3. What is rendered is what you sense while seeing (impressionism)
?
...no skill no art!
Want to get away from the indecipherable imbecilities and absurd pretensions of the modern art establishment?
Check out my web page http://www3.sympatico.ca/manideli/
John Ng
WHAT THE EYE SEES, no more no less. It is not what the camera sees
nor is mechanical perspective what determines realism. Realism is
representation of an object as what the eye sees (ie colour, line and
shade) and having all the distortions as would be perceived by the
eye. Perfect realism is neither possible nor desirable but a
representation that is very close, coupled with artistic licence, and
having a suitable composition, is the ultimate in realism.
> The Egyptians could make strong, lifelike 3D sculptures. Why their
> reliefs... They just wanted to keep the wall flat.
> They were not creating false windows to the outside world, like
> renaissance
Ability to make a 3D sculpture does not imply knowing how to represent
3D on 2D. It is not that they wanted to "keep the wall flat" but
rather didn't know how to do it right until the Renaissance. If they
could, they would.
> Isn't it then more realistic to paint a coctail party
> with all people in the same size?
> When you walk in your living room, the view changes at every step,
> but the objects remain the same. Picasso studied seriously
> how to paint an object as it is versus as it seen.
Of course, after the greatness of the Academics, people have to think
very hard on how to produce gimmicky ways of selling their art. Not
many people (in fact any at all) could outdo Bouguereau. Better quit
then try.
By the way, an architect's plan is another way of representing. Why
was it not revered as art?
> We are accustomed to traditional rendering
> -even more that the 19th century people -as we are surrounded
> by photos and camera images. There are other concepts of image,
> however. Many artists intentionally leave the rendering to
> photographers, they want to do something else.
Yes, leave the rendering to photographs; and if you are painting De
Koons, leave the brush to the elephants; and if you are painting
Mondrian, leave it to Photoshop. Why not just leave it all to the
computer. It can do everything.
> Very little of the 20th century art does touch me.
> I do not blame the artists, however,
> of my own limitations.
I didn't know you feel that way too. It is simple. The reason is
because art has degenerated. The comical farce of Modern Art has
killed its own market. Would you pay two dollars for someone's
splatter?
John Ng
Advocates an art renewal and the return to sensible art
http://community.webshots.com/user/pigsmayfly
Bob C
> Realism is none of what you said. The only thing needed to realism is
> WHAT THE EYE SEES, no more no less. It is not what the camera sees
> nor is mechanical perspective what determines realism. Realism is
> representation of an object as what the eye sees (ie colour, line and
> shade) and having all the distortions as would be perceived by the
> eye.
Hypothetically, there is no need to include distortions in a realistic
rendering, because when the eye sees the undistorted representation it
will perceive the distortions just as it did when viewing the real
thing. In reality, however, we cannot completely duplicate what the eye
is seeing, so we have to modify the rendering from optical accuracy. We
do this not be rendering the distortions which we perceive, but by
making changes so that the viewer will perceive the same distortions in
the rendering as they did from the real scene. These are not the same
things.
This is not to say that there is anything wrong with specifically
attempting to show the distortions themselves, it just isn't what we
would call being realistic.
The limitations of realistic rendering are not really distortions,
however, but the fact that we simply do not see in 2D images. The way we
process vision is extremely different. We think it is similar only
because 2D images just happen to be the best way we have to try to
describe an entire scene. Any similarity between eyes and cameras stops
at the retina, which acts in a much more complex manner than the
receptors on a digital camera. Beyond that point, there is a great deal
of mental processing which occurs before the inputs from our eyes become
available to our conscious minds (and information in our conscious minds
creates feedback that effects that processing).
It is impossible to separate the physical and mental aspects of seeing.
When optical illusions fool us, it isn't because of distortions or
fooling the eye, it's because they fool that part of our mind that turns
the physical information into something which our consciousness can use.
Thus, there is no such thing as "drawing what you see", because you
don't see in 2D. You can, however, attempt to draw things as they are -
by which I mean that you are rendering things so that they present as
closely as possible the same physical input to the senses. It is the
limitations of attempting to do this, however, which means that
something can seem more "realistic" even as it deviates more greatly
from an accurate reproduction of that physical input.
- Bob C.
Mani Deli
wrote:
> If I choose to
>make a realistic work of art about this chair then I need to find a
>representation that is recognizable as being a representation for the
>chair. One might argue that the most realistic would be if I would
>completely copy it but then it wouldn't be art anymore ofcourse, it
>would be another chair.
In other words you believe that a most realistic rendering of a chair
is a chair. I suspect a difference.
> All representational art is a symbolic stand
>in (or a depiction) of something else. There are culturally agreed
>upon means to represent a chair "realistically".
It is a physiological, not cultural phenomenon.
>So, if you ask what realistic art is then it really depends who you
>ask. Some might find Matisse more realistic than Rembrandt. We
>ofcourse all know that funny anekdote of a man saying to Picasso that
>he should paint more realistic and beautifull women upon which Picasso
>asked him for an example. The man showed Picasso a photo of his wife
>which he carried in his wallet. Picasso said his wife was quite small
>and flat too :-)
>
And Picasso painted a portrait which is large and flat so what?
Paul Mesken
wrote:
>On Sat, 22 Feb 2003 00:12:05 +0100, Paul Mesken <usu...@euronet.nl>
>wrote:
>
>> If I choose to
>>make a realistic work of art about this chair then I need to find a
>>representation that is recognizable as being a representation for the
>>chair. One might argue that the most realistic would be if I would
>>completely copy it but then it wouldn't be art anymore ofcourse, it
>>would be another chair.
>
>In other words you believe that a most realistic rendering of a chair
>is a chair. I suspect a difference.
>
Quite the contrary, as you can read "... then it wouldn't be art
anymore..."
>> All representational art is a symbolic stand
>>in (or a depiction) of something else. There are culturally agreed
>>upon means to represent a chair "realistically".
>
>It is a physiological, not cultural phenomenon.
>
All cultural phenomena have a physiological origin. Whether or not art
is perceived as realistic is culturally determined. Since the
Renaissance art is perceived as realistic if it's close to what the
camera captures. Lighting, linear perspective, true proportions,
textures etc. Our visual system however is not a camera but we learn
quickly how to "read" a photo as a stand in for visual reality.
Erik A. Mattila
>>>All representational art is a symbolic stand
>>>in (or a depiction) of something else. There are culturally agreed
>>>upon means to represent a chair "realistically".
>>
>>It is a physiological, not cultural phenomenon.
>>
>
>
> All cultural phenomena have a physiological origin. Whether or not art
> is perceived as realistic is culturally determined. Since the
> Renaissance art is perceived as realistic if it's close to what the
> camera captures. Lighting, linear perspective, true proportions,
> textures etc. Our visual system however is not a camera but we learn
> quickly how to "read" a photo as a stand in for visual reality.
>
There are plenty of concrete historical examples. My favorite was a
Byzantine manuscript which survived, lauding the "realism" of a new
mosaic Madonna installed in the Hagia Sophia. It stressed the
"life-like" qualities, as if you could see the figure breathing. What's
remarkable is that Constantinople was full of classic Roman realistic
works of art, which by our standards would be much more life-like than a
cartoonish mosaic.
Another was the Polaroid portraits taken by anthros of Papuans who
didn't recognize as representations of their faces (1950s). but once
the tribesmen were "taught" that they were photos of their faces, they
then couldn't "unsee" their faces. Paradise lost...extremely unbiased
seers completely lost their objectivity to the ideology of the camera.
Cats and Dogs are not fooled by photographic representations and trompe
l'oeil, only the lower life forms such as ourselves are tricked into
believing ideology is truth.
There's very little "physiology" in human vision, insofar as "meaning"
is concerned. If we really sensed all and everything in the visual
field before our eyes, it would overwhelm us with it's chaotic and
ambiguous complexity. Thank our lucky stars for our cultural filters.
They allow us to sustain our illusions.
Erik
Paul Mesken
<emat...@oco.net> wrote:
>Paul Mesken wrote:
>
>>>>All representational art is a symbolic stand
>>>>in (or a depiction) of something else. There are culturally agreed
>>>>upon means to represent a chair "realistically".
>>>
>>>It is a physiological, not cultural phenomenon.
>>>
>>
>>
>> All cultural phenomena have a physiological origin. Whether or not art
>> is perceived as realistic is culturally determined. Since the
>> Renaissance art is perceived as realistic if it's close to what the
>> camera captures. Lighting, linear perspective, true proportions,
>> textures etc. Our visual system however is not a camera but we learn
>> quickly how to "read" a photo as a stand in for visual reality.
>>
>There are plenty of concrete historical examples. My favorite was a
>Byzantine manuscript which survived, lauding the "realism" of a new
>mosaic Madonna installed in the Hagia Sophia. It stressed the
>"life-like" qualities, as if you could see the figure breathing. What's
>remarkable is that Constantinople was full of classic Roman realistic
>works of art, which by our standards would be much more life-like than a
>cartoonish mosaic.
>
Excellent example, realistic art is only realistic because it lives up
to our learned expectations of what realistic art should be like. One
of my most liked expressions is "giving it more definition". By this
painters simply mean to provide more clues about how the object
they're rendering looks like in real life (or should look like).
Ofcourse both the method (or schemata) and the importance of these
clues are culturally defined. Students learned the schemata from their
masters (effects to make something look like silver, how to render
eyes, etc.). It's actually quite amazing that we can think of a
painting as realistic since it can only show a limited number of
properties (and fake a lot others like volume and depth). This shows
how open the human mind is to symbols.
>Another was the Polaroid portraits taken by anthros of Papuans who
>didn't recognize as representations of their faces (1950s). but once
>the tribesmen were "taught" that they were photos of their faces, they
>then couldn't "unsee" their faces. Paradise lost...extremely unbiased
>seers completely lost their objectivity to the ideology of the camera.
>
>Cats and Dogs are not fooled by photographic representations and trompe
>l'oeil, only the lower life forms such as ourselves are tricked into
>believing ideology is truth.
>
Yes, it never fails to amaze me that people get tricked time after
time that they actually own these animals. To the objective eye it
should be clear that we're nothing but servants to them ;-)
>There's very little "physiology" in human vision, insofar as "meaning"
>is concerned. If we really sensed all and everything in the visual
>field before our eyes, it would overwhelm us with it's chaotic and
>ambiguous complexity. Thank our lucky stars for our cultural filters.
>They allow us to sustain our illusions.
>
Yes, this is the "How many stripes has the tiger" paradox. We only
have the feeling we can see our environment with pinpoint precision
but this is in fact an illusion.
Chris
"Erik A. Mattila" <emat...@oco.net> wrote in message
news:3E5AF090...@oco.net...
>
> Another was the Polaroid portraits taken by anthros of Papuans who
> didn't recognize as representations of their faces (1950s). but once
> the tribesmen were "taught" that they were photos of their faces, they
> then couldn't "unsee" their faces. Paradise lost...extremely unbiased
> seers completely lost their objectivity to the ideology of the camera.
>
Erik;
Out of curiosity, did they not rcognize their own faces, or did they not
recogize that the Polaroids were images of people?
> Cats and Dogs are not fooled by photographic representations and trompe
> l'oeil, only the lower life forms such as ourselves are tricked into
> believing ideology is truth.
>
Nah, they just aren't interested, since we don't present it too them in a
way suiteed to their own physiological response. If you want to get a dog
interested in a painting, just pee on it (their noses are as critical to
them as our eyes are to us). Maybe through the wonder of chemistry we could
come up with a trompe de nez ...
Not that animals are immune to high art though - I had a cat that enjoyed
watching wrestling on TV (and I really only had it on that station by
accident! Honestly!); a pair of budgies that used to perch on a painting I
did of a tree (though they did tend to express a little critical disdain
from time to time..). And recently my dog sat thoroughly attentive during
the bed-pole dance scene in "Undercover Brother" (as did my 12 yr old, both
with their tongues hanging out... ).
> There's very little "physiology" in human vision, insofar as "meaning"
> is concerned. If we really sensed all and everything in the visual
> field before our eyes, it would overwhelm us with it's chaotic and
> ambiguous complexity. Thank our lucky stars for our cultural filters.
> They allow us to sustain our illusions.
>
But again, whether it is cultural or genetic still is a big issue -
apparently humans have large amounts of base patterns (onto which visual
information is projected and correlated) already encoded at birth. For
example, just as some gulls focus on any red spot at hatching; it appears
that human children seek to identify faces. But like your Hagia Sophia
example bears out, the question is where genetics stops and culture begins
(though such a linear partitioning is probably oversimplistic anyway...).
Another example - familiar to any guy who has ever been to a lipstick
counter with his girlfriend - men tend to be less sensitive in reds (they
differentiate less) than women (though the relationship is statistical, and
hence not applicable to any specific person.)
Chris
Paul Mesken
>
>"Erik A. Mattila" <emat...@oco.net> wrote in message
>news:3E5AF090...@oco.net...
>>
>> Cats and Dogs are not fooled by photographic representations and trompe
>> l'oeil, only the lower life forms such as ourselves are tricked into
>> believing ideology is truth.
>>
>
>Nah, they just aren't interested, since we don't present it too them in a
>way suiteed to their own physiological response. If you want to get a dog
>interested in a painting, just pee on it (their noses are as critical to
>them as our eyes are to us). Maybe through the wonder of chemistry we could
>come up with a trompe de nez ...
>
LOL! Very true indeed. To us our eyes are the dominant sense but to
dogs their nose is, they're constanly sniffing everything (especially
one's crotch :-)
>> There's very little "physiology" in human vision, insofar as "meaning"
>> is concerned. If we really sensed all and everything in the visual
>> field before our eyes, it would overwhelm us with it's chaotic and
>> ambiguous complexity. Thank our lucky stars for our cultural filters.
>> They allow us to sustain our illusions.
>>
>
>But again, whether it is cultural or genetic still is a big issue -
>apparently humans have large amounts of base patterns (onto which visual
>information is projected and correlated) already encoded at birth. For
>example, just as some gulls focus on any red spot at hatching; it appears
>that human children seek to identify faces. But like your Hagia Sophia
>example bears out, the question is where genetics stops and culture begins
>(though such a linear partitioning is probably oversimplistic anyway...).
>Another example - familiar to any guy who has ever been to a lipstick
>counter with his girlfriend - men tend to be less sensitive in reds (they
>differentiate less) than women (though the relationship is statistical, and
>hence not applicable to any specific person.)
>
Yes, there are a lot of base patterns, we couldn't function without
it. Culture elaborates on this (and that's why culture has its origins
in the physiological). These patterns are quite mundane though. For
example : depth perception seems to be hardwired (as J.J. and E.J.
Gibson nicely showed with newborns shying away from "visual cliffs").
Our culture provides us with tools (symbols) to represent real life
objects in a completely different medium. The mere fact that we can
associate effortlessly makes representational art possible.
BTW the lipstick story is interesting since it seems men favour more
reddish (warmer, more orange thus) lipstick (on women ofcourse) while
women statistically favour more purple (colder, more blue) lipstick.
Generally speaking : men are better at spatial relationships while
women are better at colors (but this is in general, the specific might
be different).
G*rd*n
| Realism is none of what you said. The only thing needed to realism is
To reiterate, it is the brain that sees. If you were to
decode the signals passing along the optical nerve and turn
them, more or less raw, into otherwise unprocessed images,
you'd get quite a mess -- something that would make the
vaguest Impressionist look like Vermeer by comparison.
Erik A. Mattila
> "Erik A. Mattila" <emat...@oco.net> wrote in message
> news:3E5AF090...@oco.net...
>
>>Another was the Polaroid portraits taken by anthros of Papuans who
>>didn't recognize as representations of their faces (1950s). but once
>>the tribesmen were "taught" that they were photos of their faces, they
>>then couldn't "unsee" their faces. Paradise lost...extremely unbiased
>>seers completely lost their objectivity to the ideology of the camera.
>>
>
>
> Erik;
>
> Out of curiosity, did they not rcognize their own faces, or did they not
> recogize that the Polaroids were images of people?
Both, Chris. Let me see...I'm pretty sure I read about this in
Gombrich's "Art and Illusion" but not 100%.
I'm skeptical about the human face thing...how do we know it's not
olefactory? I mean, the face smells different than the ass, in many
cases. (Just kidding). I would imagine that genetic predispositions
continue throughout our visual life spans.
But back to art...I remember studying "descriptive drawing and
rendering" way back in ancient times. One challenging subject was a
piece of redwood that was snapped at one end and a piece of window glass
with a broken edge. My (and other classmates) initial tendency was to
try to construct a one to one correspondence between the subjects and
the elements of the painting. You could only go so far this way in
constructing 'believability' but it inevitably fell short of the mark.
It wasn't until you began to build visual +translations+ that you could
get the rendering to 'snap' and achieve that illusion of reality. This
required a concentrated effort to analyze what you really see in the
subject - a sharp focus +below+ the level of casual seeing. What amazed
me at the time was the amount of simplification you could do without
destroying believability - in fact, there's a certain threshold of
simplification where believability increases, and that is your target in
this kind of exercise. It's a terrific experience for an artist, I
think, even for those who are committed to non-objective painting.
Anyway, that's primarily why I would argue againt the physiography of
the subject being the prime mover of believability. The focus has to be
on "how we see" rather than "what we see," and that requires some pretty
intense visual hermeneutics (which is also the vessel that holds our
various cultural ideologies).
Erik
Erik A. Mattila
> Yes, there are a lot of base patterns, we couldn't function without
> it. Culture elaborates on this (and that's why culture has its origins
> in the physiological). These patterns are quite mundane though. For
> example : depth perception seems to be hardwired (as J.J. and E.J.
> Gibson nicely showed with newborns shying away from "visual cliffs").
> Our culture provides us with tools (symbols) to represent real life
> objects in a completely different medium. The mere fact that we can
> associate effortlessly makes representational art possible.
There's a book I read quite a while back...something like "Origins of
Primitive Artf" or "Art Origins" - sorry, that's the best I can do. It
was a collection of anthro papers - Gene Weltfish (on Amazon palmetto
weaving patterns as a base for later carving and painting) Paul
Devereaux, and many others. One paper was on the visual repetoire of a
tribe in Venezuela, who regularly indulged in "super-snuff" yahe based
drugs. The investigator thought the alphabet of patterns that
constituted the tribal art forms looked familiar, and when he got back
to Europe he researched and found a paper on some drug experiments done
in Switzerland in the 40's. The test subjects all experienced intense
pattern type hallucinations when the drug was ingested, and these fell
into typological categories. The determinant was the actual structure
of the human retina - that was what was generating the patterns and
making it so every subject saw essentially the same thing. It turned
out that the molecule of the drug was very close to the yahe in
Venezuela, and the tribal patterns were remarkably close to the Swiss
examples.
The moral of the story? Drugs were probably a prime-mover of art in
human prehistory. Those little star-patterns you find all over
Teotihuacan - five points with a circle in the middle that archaeologist
traditionally interpret as a starfish - are actually cross-sections of
the San Pedro cactus. They also proliferate in Nazca art, which gives
some evidence of early drug trafficking as well as art history. (Hey,
one stoner Peruvian archaeologist claims that the cactus was ingested
for the purpose of astral projection so that the voyager could
appreciate the Nazca Lines from high altitude.)
Erik
Bob C
> Forgive me if I am slow and have missed this point.
> I know you are somewhere near to what I am saying.
> When attempting to depict in a realist way, then are there
> at least two options.
> 1) make the picture a realist world in which the eye can roam,
> as per Renaissance.
> 2) try to make the viewer experience the mental frozen image
> that the mind computes, at any moment. This, meaning that a focal
> point gets a realist treatment and definition is blurred and/or faded
> in gradation away from the centre of focus.
I would not call the second one "realist", since we don't perceive the
world that way even though that is the way our processing of the world
occurs.
> The first is a compromise because we never see everything in focus,
> but then when within the optimum distance from many a large painting,
> the eye never manages to focus on the whole painting anyway.
Exactly. When the viewer is looking at painting type 1, they are only
seeing a small bit of it in focus at any single instance in time. So the
experience of viewing it is very similar to the experience of viewing
the real world. But rarely similar enough to come anywhere close to
truly fooling us (except for very limited trompe l'oeil under very
limited conditions).
> The second is just as much a compromise, since the eye never rests
> upon the focal point but scans the picture to get it's own take on what
> it sees. This second option I have heard about too much. Many people have
> told me to 'draw the eye into the main part of the picture' and 'don't
> deflect
> or distract the eye from your main subject/object by painting with too
> intense
> a colour there'(meaning near the edge), and other comments which amount
> to the same.
I'm not following that - I've never heard those phrases before. Are you
talking about the way composition guides our eyes around the painting?
There are a guidelines one can use such as "guide our eye most
frequently to the main point of interest" and "don't lead our eyes off
the edge" and several others which one only violates when there is a
specific reason for doing so.
- Bob C.
Bob C
>
> Cats and Dogs are not fooled by photographic representations and trompe
> l'oeil, only the lower life forms such as ourselves are tricked into
> believing ideology is truth.
>
I may be nitpicking, but I have to disagree. I think that a well
executed trompe l'oeil, seen under the proper conditions, will trick
anyone or anything which sees it. When seen from a distance, at the
right angle, under the right lighting, the visual information being
provided is so close to what the real object would give us, that sight
will not distinguish them.
The typical realist painting or photograph, however, comes nowhere close
to achieving this. So replace "trompe l'oeil" with "realist painting"
and I'll agree!
At the recent Trompe L'oeil show at the National Gallery of Art, people
would line up to see the single most convincing image - a painting of a
stamp with the real stamp pasted on right next to it. Some review in the
newspaper had singled this out for comment, thus leading the sheep to
believe that there was some significance in using a 2D surface to
imitate another 2D surface. It was, however, a very technically
competent rendering.
The second most convincing image depicted several sheets of paper under
broken glass. The broken glass was painted, but it was impossible not to
see it as broken glass unless you got within inches of it and looked at
it from an angle. There was a slight amount of 3D affect there.
As the images got more complex and included more depth, they naturally
become less convincing. In fact, walking through an entire show of these
things, they were far less convincing to me than they would have been
had I been seeing them individually. The Harnett paintings, for
instance, will nearly always give me at least a moment's illusion of
seeing real objects when I first glance at them. Upon coming across one
of them in the middle of this show, it didn't fool me for a minute. I
guess the brain just becomes more alert to not being fooled when
surrounded by images trying to fool it.
- Bob C.
Mani Deli
>pigsm...@hotmail.com (John Ng):
>| Realism is none of what you said. The only thing needed to realism is
>| WHAT THE EYE SEES, no more no less. ...
>
>To reiterate, it is the brain that sees.
Close your eyes and check what you see and check whether your brain
still there?
Are all the blind brain damaged? Seeing is a physiological system. It
starts with the eye. However no organism that lacks eyes, even if it
has a brain, can see.
> If you were to
>decode the signals passing along the optical nerve and turn
>them, more or less raw, into otherwise unprocessed images,
>you'd get quite a mess -- something that would make the
>vaguest Impressionist look like Vermeer by comparison.
...no skill no art!
Paul Mesken
wrote:
>On 25 Feb 2003 10:04:36 -0500, g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
>
>>pigsm...@hotmail.com (John Ng):
>>| Realism is none of what you said. The only thing needed to realism is
>>| WHAT THE EYE SEES, no more no less. ...
>>
>>To reiterate, it is the brain that sees.
>
>Close your eyes and check what you see and check whether your brain
>still there?
>
Take out your brain and check if you can still see. It's completely
obvious what is meant by the expression that it is the brain that
perceives.
John Ng
> Hypothetically, there is no need to include distortions in a realistic
> rendering, because when the eye sees the undistorted representation…
We basically agree. I just want to clarify by what I meant by
distortion of the eye. I used to term this distortion of the camera
but the eye-brain distortion is better. The distortion I mean is, as
what you say, rendering close to what the eye-brain can see. Inherent
to this is the distortion of the clarity and distortion of the
intensity of color. Many of today's painting are much to clear, much
too intense, and much too raw -- giving us a very plastic look. This
is attributed to the bad habits of the last 100 years.
Erik A. Mattila
> Erik A. Mattila wrote:
>
>>
>> Cats and Dogs are not fooled by photographic representations and
>> trompe l'oeil, only the lower life forms such as ourselves are tricked
>> into believing ideology is truth.
>>
>
>
> I may be nitpicking, but I have to disagree. I think that a well
> executed trompe l'oeil, seen under the proper conditions, will trick
> anyone or anything which sees it. When seen from a distance, at the
> right angle, under the right lighting, the visual information being
> provided is so close to what the real object would give us, that sight
> will not distinguish them.
I'm not so sure we are disagreeing at all, Bob. I think you just have
to take the discussion up a notch (or down, depending on your
perspective) - and that is to regard the view of the subject matter with
our eyes and the rendering of it in paint as both representations of the
subject in nature. Do you see what I am saying? It's that human vision
is a representation itself, and has as ideological component.
Another example is the experiences of visually impaired people who have
had vision restored by medical processes. The newly sighted person
experiences a visual chaos that makes no sense, but with carefully
designed therapy can be taught to organize the visual field into
meaningful representations. This theraputic regime succeeds by teaching
the subject to filter out ambiguous and conflicting sensory data, sort
of like negative hallucinations. Making sense, then, of the world we
see involves just as much of "not seeing" as it does "seeing."
>
> The typical realist painting or photograph, however, comes nowhere close
> to achieving this. So replace "trompe l'oeil" with "realist painting"
> and I'll agree!
>
> At the recent Trompe L'oeil show at the National Gallery of Art, people
> would line up to see the single most convincing image - a painting of a
> stamp with the real stamp pasted on right next to it. Some review in the
> newspaper had singled this out for comment, thus leading the sheep to
> believe that there was some significance in using a 2D surface to
> imitate another 2D surface. It was, however, a very technically
> competent rendering.
>
> The second most convincing image depicted several sheets of paper under
> broken glass. The broken glass was painted, but it was impossible not to
> see it as broken glass unless you got within inches of it and looked at
> it from an angle. There was a slight amount of 3D affect there.
>
> As the images got more complex and included more depth, they naturally
> become less convincing. In fact, walking through an entire show of these
> things, they were far less convincing to me than they would have been
> had I been seeing them individually. The Harnett paintings, for
> instance, will nearly always give me at least a moment's illusion of
> seeing real objects when I first glance at them. Upon coming across one
> of them in the middle of this show, it didn't fool me for a minute. I
> guess the brain just becomes more alert to not being fooled when
> surrounded by images trying to fool it.
I'm not sure I can accept your definition of trompe l'oeil - after all,
Braque's nail is considered thus, as clunky as it is (see
http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_md_236.html). But
I can accept that a group operating under the rubric "trompe..." could
impose an explicit definition to suit its purposes...nothing wrong with
that. But historically, trompe L'oeil (trick of the eye) was a form of
architectural painting, which later spilled out to represent "realism"
on a more general level.
But your experience above seems to underscore my point. The changling
believability of the paintings you cite obviously introduces the mental
component, which corrupts the one to one correspondence between painting
and subject. You are citing context as the cause of this rupture, but
"context" is of course a mental construction.
I'll add that this is what makes the whole idea so fascinating. The
dullest account of realistic painting imaginable is the cut-and-dried
one to one correspondence. By contrast, if the artist is addressing
culture and its networked believability sydromes, then "painting"
becomes really interesting.
Erik
Mani Deli
wrote:
>On Tue, 25 Feb 2003 17:48:25 -0500, Mani Deli <ma...@sympatico.ca>
The sentence says, "to reiterate, it is the brain that sees."
Paul Mesken
wrote:
>On Wed, 26 Feb 2003 00:26:13 +0100, Paul Mesken <usu...@euronet.nl>
>wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 25 Feb 2003 17:48:25 -0500, Mani Deli <ma...@sympatico.ca>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>On 25 Feb 2003 10:04:36 -0500, g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
>>>
>>>>pigsm...@hotmail.com (John Ng):
>>>>| Realism is none of what you said. The only thing needed to realism is
>>>>| WHAT THE EYE SEES, no more no less. ...
>>>>
>>>>To reiterate, it is the brain that sees.
>>>
>>>Close your eyes and check what you see and check whether your brain
>>>still there?
>>>
>>
>>Take out your brain and check if you can still see. It's completely
>>obvious what is meant by the expression that it is the brain that
>>perceives.
>
>The sentence says, "to reiterate, it is the brain that sees."
*sigh*
Look what's in front of you, you _see_ a monitor, your eyes only
register light, it's the brain that makes a monitor out of it.
Thur
local artists - semi professionals, have just one outlook. They are to a
man/woman totally influenced by Impressionism. Now I don't dislike
some of the aspects of this style, but deliberately ignoring detail, and
having just one object of interest is something that is not sufficient for
a full range for an artist, namely me. So when they all insist that it is
not
just a positive thing to blur and fade around just one point or object, but
is a fundamental need, then I start turning off.
This is so similar, that I am getting to believe that just one artist has
instructed these people.
Another is the idea that a human figure can be represented by a carrot
shape, to the extent that a number of paintings, exhibited locally, actually
deliberately display a figure in the midground, figures distorted in such
a way. Yes, I know there are rules of thumb on how objects in the distance
probably appear the the eye, but if you distort this to such an example as
above, then you are getting into surrealism/symbolism.
Perhaps all this stuff happens only in the world of watercolour?
The guidelines you quote are useful, but only as guidelines. What happens
if your composition has a number of centres of interest, and you do not wish
to organise the viewer into looking at your image in such a way?
I do not accept that basic composition guides the eye at all. Certainly not
my eyes anyway. Takes some time to work out all the subtleties of a great
painting and I do not believe my eyes have ever followed the obvious lines.
I always view a painting from my perspective, and maybe this is where
some styles or modes just leave me numb.
Thur
"Bob C" <bob...@erols.com> wrote in message
news:3E5BE35D...@erols.com...
> Thur wrote:
> snip<
Carmine Rhedd
says...
>This is so similar, that I am getting to believe that just one artist has
>instructed these people.
You don't know how close to correct that may be.
I was living in Dallas, TX - not exactly a small
town. I was at an art fair where they rent out
booth spaces to artists. And walking around I
kept seeing watercolor paintings of the exact
same subject matter painted in the exact same
style. Finally I asked one of the exhibitors
about it and found out they were all students
of the same instructor who taught night classes
to adults at SMU (local Dallas university).
Funny thing is, I was in his class the very
next semester and he taught using the very same
subject matter I'd seen in that art fair. His
method was to do supply everyone with the same
colors and brushes then teach by demonstration.
He'd do a color passage then everyone would
return to their seat and do the same color
passage, with the process repeated over and over
until a painting-a-class was completed and
virtually everyone in the class had a successful
painting at the end of each class.
Bob C
> So when they all insist that it is not
> just a positive thing to blur and fade around just one point or object, but
> is a fundamental need, then I start turning off.
I don't blame you. I very much dislike any instructor who has decided
that their way is the only way.
> The guidelines you quote are useful, but only as guidelines. What happens
> if your composition has a number of centres of interest, and you do not wish
> to organise the viewer into looking at your image in such a way?
> I do not accept that basic composition guides the eye at all. Certainly not
> my eyes anyway.
While I don't think that the composition completely determines the
movement of my eyes across the painting, I feel very strongly that it is
provides very strong suggestions. Different people may take these
suggestions in different ways, but I think that there is evidence that
most people react similarly to certain compositional constructs.
I don't rule out the possibility that your eyes don't follow obvious
lines at all, but the whole concept seems to make so much sense to me
that I also have think it highly probably that maybe you just aren't
aware of the extent to which the composition is suggesting the movements
that your eyes will take.
I would specifically refer you to Arnheim's "The Power of the Center",
which really seemed to make a lot of sense to me when I read it. It
describes the forces and movements which he believes are inherent in
compositional elements, completely independent of any subject matter. It
is also a much easier read than most of his books ("Art and Visual
Perception" is probably his more complete work on the subject, but it
also tends to be more theoretical and less practical).
As far as there being a number of centers of interest, that particularly
guideline would be more precisely stated as "the force with which the
painting directs your eye to any spot is directly proportional to the
importance of that spot." Thus allowing for multiple focal points of
varying importance.
Realize also that another guideline is that the typical painting should
provide a variety of different paths which the eye can take. When your
eye is at one point in the painting, you can never know exactly where it
will move next, but the image can create suggestions that make it more
likely to go to one place than another. Over time, however, the eye will
eventually end up taking all possible paths from that point.
Guidelines, of course, are meant to be broken, but I think understanding
them helps you better understand what you like or dislike in different
works. This doesn't mean, however, that you need to be consciously aware
of the rules when creating the composition itself, since for most people
that should probably remain an intuitive process (it does help me,
however, when I know that something isn't working but I can't figure out
why).
BTW - off the top of my head, here are some compositional guidelines for
traditional works (as I understand them):
- the force with which the painting directs your eye to any spot is
directly proportional to the importance of that spot (ie. your eye is
directed to the focal points)
- your eye is eventually directed to the entire surface of the image
(there are no dead spots)
- the eye is never directed off the edge of the image, or to the edge
without some path for it to come back into the center
- there are a variety of movements so that the eye never takes the exact
same path
- the movements themselves are created using a variety of compositional
elements, they vary in size, shape, and strength, they also vary in
direction (horizontal, vertical, diagonal)
- there is a feeling of balance to the paths being taken
And I still haven't figured out what exactly was meant by those original
guidelines you cited ("draw the eye into the main part of the
picture"), unless it just some touchy-feely way of saying that you
should paint in an impressionistic manner.
- Bob C.
Carmine Rhedd
>...a painting-a-class was completed and
>virtually everyone in the class had a successful
>painting at the end of each class.
And so successful that the students all
felt comfortable matting, framing and trying
to sell their "original" compositions in art
fairs!!! And, no, I didn't try to sell mine...
Bob C
>
> I'm not so sure we are disagreeing at all, Bob. I think you just have
> to take the discussion up a notch (or down, depending on your
> perspective) - and that is to regard the view of the subject matter with
> our eyes and the rendering of it in paint as both representations of the
> subject in nature. Do you see what I am saying? It's that human vision
> is a representation itself, and has as ideological component.
>
Well, I don't think we're disagreeing about anything particularly
important. But I was trying to take the discussion up a notch (or down,
from your point of view) by trying to create my hypothetical ideal as a
conceptual basis from which to understand realism (as a concept, not
style). This hypothetical ideal is the painting which completely
duplicates the visual information which the real scene would present.
There is no ideological component to this ideal. A blind person given
vision will see the same visual chaos in that painting that they see in
the real world.
I think there are examples of "trick" painting which actually achieve
this ideal, but only because of very limited subject matter and usually
very limited vieiwing conditions. With the typical landscape, however,
we can't even come close. But I think it helps to create a reasonable
objective definition with which to discuss "Realism" by basing it on the
understanding of this ideal, which makes it completely clear that the
defining aspect of realism is purely about the response of the viewer
and not the feelings or impressions of the artist (even those these may
be necessary tools which the artist uses in order to evoke the proper
realistic response from the viewer).
I do agree that for anything but the limited trick painting, the
response of the viewer is very much affected by what you are calling
ideological components, and this is what makes successful realistic
rendering so much more interesting and beautiful then simply trying to
accurately depict whatever is really there. Even if technology does some
day far in the future allow us to achieve the ideal realism for
complicated landscapes, we would probably call it something other than
art. Which also makes it clear that being realistic is never the goal of
realistic art, but simply a tool with which to achieve the real goals.
- Bob C.
Andrew D
>Thur wrote:
>
>> So when they all insist that it is not
>> just a positive thing to blur and fade around just one point or object, but
>> is a fundamental need, then I start turning off.
>
>
>I don't blame you. I very much dislike any instructor who has decided
>that their way is the only way.
>
>
>> The guidelines you quote are useful, but only as guidelines. What happens
>> if your composition has a number of centres of interest, and you do not wish
>> to organise the viewer into looking at your image in such a way?
>> I do not accept that basic composition guides the eye at all. Certainly not
>> my eyes anyway.
>While I don't think that the composition completely determines the
>movement of my eyes across the painting, I feel very strongly that it is
>provides very strong suggestions. Different people may take these
>suggestions in different ways, but I think that there is evidence that
>most people react similarly to certain compositional constructs.
>I don't rule out the possibility that your eyes don't follow obvious
>lines at all, but the whole concept seems to make so much sense to me
>that I also have think it highly probably that maybe you just aren't
>aware of the extent to which the composition is suggesting the movements
>that your eyes will take.
One way to test this would be to look at an unknown painting for a couple
of seconds then try to describe everything in it. If the main things you
remember are arranged around the focal point or act as compositional
supports for it, then you are a "affected" by these things whether you are
aware of it or not. Of course, you would need to be honest with yourself
when taking the test and it might help if an "experienced" artist could
point out the various "lead-ins" after each example.
[snip]
>Realize also that another guideline is that the typical painting should
>provide a variety of different paths which the eye can take. When your
>eye is at one point in the painting, you can never know exactly where it
>will move next, but the image can create suggestions that make it more
>likely to go to one place than another. Over time, however, the eye will
>eventually end up taking all possible paths from that point.
It may be that an individual is guided more by some compositional
structures than by others. If you are more sensitive to colour than
contrast for example, then colour changes within a painting may have
greater effect on how your eye travels over that work.
[snip]
Andy D.
"I'm a great speller - but a hopless tpyist!"
Andrew D
<a@spamless.z> wrote:
>I occasionally pay for instruction in painting, and my instructors, usually
>local artists - semi professionals, have just one outlook. They are to a
>man/woman totally influenced by Impressionism. Now I don't dislike
>some of the aspects of this style, but deliberately ignoring detail, and
>having just one object of interest is something that is not sufficient for
>a full range for an artist, namely me. So when they all insist that it is
>not
>just a positive thing to blur and fade around just one point or object, but
>is a fundamental need, then I start turning off.
>This is so similar, that I am getting to believe that just one artist has
>instructed these people.
It sounds like fundamental impressionism - at least in the modern sense of
the term. One focal point and perhaps one or two secondaries. A few
lead-ins and the use of tonal, textural and temperature contrasts to
direct the eye. Almost any "how to" book based on "impressionist/realist"
art will offer similar "advice".
"Local artists and semi-professionals" would probably assume that by
seeking them out as teachers, you are wanting to know how *they* work -
and that is what they offer. For a more complete "education" you need the
services of a number of people experienced and/or practicing in different
areas of art. If you want to know more about abstract art or super-realist
airbrushing or simple charcoal sketching then you will likely need to seek
out workshops/lessons by artists doing these types of work.
I still struggle with the ideas of "lead-ins" and other compositional
structures and I don't look for them in other artists' work even though
they are probably there - but I know that when I take an opportunity to
apply some of these concepts, my paintings often "look better"... to me.
G*rd*n
> wrote:
>
> >On Wed, 26 Feb 2003 00:26:13 +0100, Paul Mesken <usu...@euronet.nl>
> >wrote:
> >
> >>On Tue, 25 Feb 2003 17:48:25 -0500, Mani Deli <ma...@sympatico.ca>
> >>wrote:
> >>
> >>>On 25 Feb 2003 10:04:36 -0500, g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>pigsm...@hotmail.com (John Ng):
> >>>>| Realism is none of what you said. The only thing needed to realism is
> >>>>| WHAT THE EYE SEES, no more no less. ...
> >>>>
> >>>>To reiterate, it is the brain that sees.
> >>>
> >>>Close your eyes and check what you see and check whether your brain
> >>>still there?
> >>>
> >>
> >>Take out your brain and check if you can still see. It's completely
> >>obvious what is meant by the expression that it is the brain that
> >>perceives.
> >
> >The sentence says, "to reiterate, it is the brain that sees."
Paul Mesken <usu...@euronet.nl>:
> *sigh*
>
> Look what's in front of you, you _see_ a monitor, your eyes only
> register light, it's the brain that makes a monitor out of it.
You're not going to explain anything to a partisan
fundamentalist. It's not part of the game they play. It's
not that MD doesn't know how the eye and brain actually function
together, _he_doesn't_care_. What "the eye sees" is not some
kind of scientific or empirical theory but a convention to
which absolute validity is accorded by faith.
Paul Mesken
Yes, you're right. I should know better but somewhere deep within
there's a spark of hope that I can actually reach him ;-)
Neil Maxwell
wrote:
>Yes, you're right. I should know better but somewhere deep within
>there's a spark of hope that I can actually reach him ;-)
How long have you been hanging out here?!?
I'm not a fundamentalist of either camp, and while I don't completely
disagree with his ideas, it's pretty clear he's not going to change
his tune via a bit of dialogue...
Does make for some amusing exchanges, though.
Neil Maxwell - I don't speak for my employer
Paul Mesken
<neil.m...@nospam.intel.com> wrote:
>On Thu, 27 Feb 2003 20:14:08 +0100, Paul Mesken <usu...@euronet.nl>
>wrote:
>
>>Yes, you're right. I should know better but somewhere deep within
>>there's a spark of hope that I can actually reach him ;-)
>
>How long have you been hanging out here?!?
>
A mere five years, I'm a newbie :-)