| Exploring the progress of the image's effect
on us, we may observe that it has a
lot in common with the history of acceptance, assimilation, learning of any given medium. The
easiest example is a relatively new one - film, where we do have testimonies
of panic that stroke the first viewers of "Train Entering the Station"
(brothers Lumiere), compared to the today's familiarity of fluently reading
the meanings of complex film language, like some parallel non-linear time frames, for example. Our gradual understanding
of film language and its particular nuances is noticeable in every medium. And younger mediums exploit the experience
of the older ones, therefore managing to traverse from the wonder to assimilation in much shorter time. But besides the relatively fast advance of new mediums, there's still a slower, important evolution of the eye itself. We'd like to suggest a concept of an universal development of visual perception and thinking (that only gets helped and recognized in a development of the new medium). We are not necessarily talking about the evolution of the human kind, but an abstract development, present at least partially at every case of visual evolving. Interestingly, it is exactly the perception of image composition that is always in the center of this path. In the abundance of picturesque examples, we may start somewhere in the primitive human cave community, or the the new born baby's first sight - or any situation where we are brought to using our eyes in a completely different way (such would also be taking a camera in hand for a first time). This is the moment where the simplest visual form is to express the simplest (that would be the most general, too) visual idea. In composition this amounts to basic central framing, unburdened by any external meaning - open in the generalization, as the child's drawing should be. After this, an exploration of aberrations follows, through play of senses. This long journey brings us to the era most beautifully embodied in the ancient greek culture, where the subconscious visual (e)merges with the conscious science, all in aim of reaching the ideals of eternal beauty. This cult of mathematically defined proportions is called "the golden rule". At this level our famous frame can be ushered, although it is not yet required. The significance and awareness of frame is increasing, and its first conscious application brings it to a function of a window (in Renaissance), from where it gradually again becomes an end of the image - this time consciously. The basic ingredient composition gains in baroque is a dynamic rhythm of the whole structure, tension between the contrasting compositional elements. This dynamism favors a slanted line (or a diagonal) as a favorite direction of forces, counterpoint and polarities are loved, the corners of the image are utilized, and the balance is found using long levers. The frame is readily accepted as an end of the world - even more so since right behind is the beloved infinity. History here elects to take a break, taking a breath in the forms of classicism, but the human eye continues to the intentional mold-breaking and experimenting of 20th century movements. The image does not include itself completely, but counts on the finishing touch of an active viewer (as described in the chapter about space and surface of the image): what has been won is a certain "right" to imperfection: composition leans more towards the higher, interpretational structure of forces, different from the one factually present. Interaction of compositional forces with the frame intensifies. There is a lot of play with ambivalence of levels or simply ways of perception. This courage leads itself into a sort of collapse into a blissful feeling of a chaotic whole, an all-encompassing universe: a composition that is somewhat self-negating, like a homogenous mass without an identifyable spine. Embodiments of this are found in different places in the 20th century art, starting the action painting, late photographs of dry bushes filling the frames of Lee Friedlander, or in any work of art that explores the idea of an unorganized mass or a texture. Imprecise and incomplete, these musings are obviously improvisational and intuitive explorations. Even more vague would be to project from here into the future without simply walking out on a limb. Doing so, what I feel will follow could be sensed as a crystallization of the center amidst the lively chaotic and shapeless conglomerate. The center which retains all the weighted meaning of the fore said chaos, the whole of the image, and the history of the image. So, let's just say that, in the time to come, on the way to be walked, or just as waiting on the edge of our conscious - our visual aesthetic, or more precisely the composition, will have a notable relation with the center of image. At this moment, this idea of composition seems to be the farthest reach of our collective visual intuition. New York, 1/14 - 2/22/1990
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| evolution of the aesthetic standard | |||
 Not impressive in size, these two elements still maintain a surprisingly dynamic composition. In their shapes and positions they carry initiative for the forces which then fill up the whole remaining space - almost pushing to break the frame, in the combination of several opposites.
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