Exploring the progress of the image's effect
on us, we may observe that gradations of our approach towards it have a
lot in common with the history of "acceptance" of the 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"
(Lumiere brothers), compared to the familiarity we exhibit fluently reading
some of the most complex forms good directors use today. Our gradual understanding
of the language and particular nuances is noticeable in every medium. Historians
bask in the availability of proofs that younger mediums exploit the experience
of the older ones, and therefore manage to traverse from the stages of
wonder to assimilation in much shorter time. The evolution at stake certainly
involves the progression of the medium, but it is still based on and lead
by the progress of the recipient, the audience, the eye itself. This is
why we post a concept of an universal development of visual perception
and thinking (that only gets recognized in development of a new
medium). It is obvious that we are not talking about the evolution anchored
to the history of human kind. We are aiming for an abstract development,
present at least partially at every case of visual evolving: something
so inherent to our nature that it can rather be applied to than deducted from our
history. The description of this development's phases is strewn all around
this text as well, especially where the analysis of all ways of perception
and usage of certain image's element is addressed. The fact that we are
interested in the compositional aspect of this evolution doesn't cut us
short too much: it is exactly the composition that is the essence and spine
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 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 symmetry, 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,
again not immediately conscious of any effect. This long and subconscious
journey brings us to the era most beautifully embodied in the ancient greek
culture, where the mentioned subconscious visual (e)merges with the conscious,
all in purpose of serving the ideals of eternal, astral, and so absolute
that it survived attempts to be explained by the mathematics. The cult
of proportions is called "the golden rule". This is a level where our famous
frame can be ushered, although not yet essential, and only partially effective.
Sadly enough, there are too many real developments which stop at this level
(the appeal of rational perfection cannot be overestimated). However, as
much as we want to exclusively and dogmatically accept the absolute of
golden rule, we must notice the discourses in history (after the ancient
period), that appear as a natural continuation of the visual aesthetic
development, although without such sleek established shape the golden rule
has.
The significance 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 (even though this vector is present throughout the whole
evolution) is a inclination towards dynamization of the whole structure.
This is all still happening under the pretense of the golden rule, but
a whole bestiary of forces and tensions blooms there: slanted line (or
a diagonal) becomes 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, retiring for the moment in the forms
of classicism, even though the major direction away from the "perfect proportions" is
not to be abandoned, and eventually flourishes hidden under the intentional
disarray and sensationalism of 20th century movements. The image does not
include itself completely, but counts on the finishing touch of an active
perception (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 - all up to the "penetration" of frame. There is
a lot of play (use) with ambivalence of levels or simply ways of perception,
in all formal and conceptual aspects. This festivity of derangement naturally
leads itself into the compression of the multitude of elements, into the
unfinishedness, and collapse of any visual conception. Most precisely described
as chaos, this is also the time of release - the violence of forces, thanks
to its own multitude, seems to have a neutralizing effect on itself. The
product is the blissful feeling of a whole, an all-encompassing universe.
Embodiments of this are found in different places in the 20th century art,
in some gestures of enformel, sometimes even in the action painting, or
in some strange results of structuralism.
Chaos by its nature tends to be final stop - every of the mentioned examples
either bounced back onto previous, or found itself lost, in need of a new
beginning. Therefore, to voice out what's next, is a silly bravery, or
a prophecy. Well, if intuition has a right of speech here (and it must've
earned it by this page), then the following could be sensed as a crystallization
of the center amidst the chaotic and shapeless lively 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. Some of this reverie
towards the center was described within "in the frame" chapter. Even though
a complete realization of this sensibility cannot be found out there yet,
in today's art a certain altar-like symmetry is common, suggesting the
importance of center. So, even without the easily uploaded symbolism, 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 visual intuition.
New York, 1/14 - 2/22/1990 |
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.
Explicit symmetry of this image uses the center as
an altar-like foundation of absolute power. The points on each side
have the symbolic character of "alpha and omega", beginning and end
of everything that is. Not being the perfect - dead center, this
constellation attracts many terrestrial qualities, mostly by the
weight placed on the bottom edge. That's how we don't miss out on
the sexual allusion as well: to penetration, or, a bit more general,
to a murky instinctual force.
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