Reduce.  You’ll see more.

~ü

[Image: growth Michael Manning 2011]

Embrace the grotesque.

~ü

The work of Dutch illustrator Evalien caught my eye last Monday in Rotterdam at the Café de Unie. Evalien Lang was one of the highlights at the bad taste symposium. Evalien acknowledged a major influence by the work of Glen Baxter, notable in Lang’s absurd juxtapositions of images and text.

The Dutch caption reads “Niets dat een warm sopje en een scheutje bleek niet oplost.” (English: Nothing that some warm soapy water and a dash of bleach won’t solve”.

(via Anneke Koster Illustration: Julie & Evalien)

Whether or not an aesthetic is successful depends on how well it communicates an idea or a feeling.  The most valuable observations deftly balances clarity and complexity.

~ü

[Image: Florence Chevallier Sans Titre (2000)]

While his subject-matter may seem repetitious, Hammershoi is the master of subtly and subtle changes. His style of painting which seems influenced by Dutch genre artists like Vermeer and the impressionists, remains the same throughout, but his aesthetic is rich in the bridges it creates. The strange stillness of his paintings, especially the ones without human subjects, are almost surreal and his compositions and portraits, most notably when we only see the back of the subject’s head, are abstract in their experiments with compositional convention.

Empty space dominates the paintings. Hammershoi’s muted emotion are emblematic to the mono no aware in Japanese visual art. The silence of his paintings are so great that you can almost hear it.

~ harmoniesoflight:

[Image: White Doors, Vilhelm Hammershoi (1905)]

The Romans: Post-Classical before Post-Modernism was cool.  

~ü

Discobolus (Discus-Thrower), Marble, Roman copy after Myron’s bronze original of the 5th century BC, From the Villa Adriana near Tivoli, Italy

[Image: Nude Male Model with Discuss, Photograph, 1950s, Artist Unknown]

Wabi Sabi - “imperfect, impermanent and incomplete”

Pushing the edges of the frame.  A few brown leaves.  Engrossed in negative space.  Elements that filmmakers and artists should strive for if only because of it’s rarity.  Even more rare today due to our ability to undo, seamlessly sample and infinitely edit and reedit. 

~ü

[Image: Cliona Doyle,  Before the Storm, Etching]

My Kid Could Do That.

One of my favorite artists is Mark Rothko.  Many reject his work thinking that they’re missing some genius, or offended that others see something in his work that they don’t.  I don’t look for genius because genuine genius is a rare commodity that is only understood in hindsight and reflection.  The beauty of Rothko’s work is, of course, it’s simplicity. 

On a related note, a professor of mine reflected on why he didn’t invent Facebook - or Twitter.  These are relatively simple applications in the scheme of what is actually complex in computer science.  The most difficult problem they deal with is volume, not invention or complexity.  He writes:

Four or five years ago, my best buddy on campus and I were having lunch at our favorite Chinese buffet. He looked up between bites of General Tsao’s and asked, “Why didn’t you and I sit down five years ago and write Facebook?”

You see, he is an awesome programmer and has worked with me enough to know that I do all right myself. At various times, both of us have implemented bits and pieces of the technology that makes up Facebook. It doesn’t look like all that big a deal.

I answered, “Because we didn’t think of it.”

…

We had the technical skills we needed to write Facebook. We just didn’t have the idea of Facebook. Turns out, that matters.

Wallingford continues:

…a key point that many people miss when they think about the success and achievement of things like Facebook and Twitter and Napster: The real story is not the invention.

The real story with Rothko is not the painting.  It’s what happens with the painting when it is placed in a museum, in front of people at a specific place in the world, at a specific time.

On the same note, Facebook’s achievement is not the complexity of the invention or the technological achievement.  It is its place in the world and its adoption. 

~ü