On this blog, we don’t discuss weirdness of politics. Instead, below, find weirdness as a result of photoshopping:
Moonlight:
tilted sunshine,
and finally, a monster rock.
What am I doing to myself? Will my perception be altered by such playing with images? Creatures learn what they see. Kittens raised in a world of vertical stripes stumble over a horizontal stick.
I remember more clearly last spring’s photographs of mudflats, rather than the 3-D world out there. Would I now see 2-dimensionally walking along the Jadebusen at low tide? Is my view of the world altered by my photographs?
A year ago, reading about Cezanne, I wondered what prompted the strange perspectives of his landscapes. Oddly enough, Cezanne himself never found anything unusual in his manner of addressing perspective. Did he have an abnormality in his visual system? Did he poke fun at people asking him questions?
A more recent artist, Adolph Gottlieb – according to Wikipedia – first painted cacti and barren scenery in the desert. Next, he inserted mysterious incongruities into otherwise normal landscapes until finally, he ‘distilled his expansiveness into a more basic abstract form’. I would love to know whether he painted these abstractions from permutations of landscapes that evolved in his mind (without looking any longer at landscapes), or whether he began to actually see abstract shapes within the landscape.
Can other sensory input have an impact as well? Some artists listen to music while they paint. Did auditory input have an impact on Clyfford Still’s art? During World War II, Still worked in war industry jobs. His daughter remembers: “All he heard was this pounding all day long”. That was the time that Still began his abstract style for which he is known.
How do you portrait the world? Trying for Realism or allowing yourself being Fanciful? Does your art affect your perception of what is out there?
Birgit:
That wouldn’t be the Miami River, would it?
Birgit:
That wouldn’t be the Miami River, would it?
Sorry, the computer just dumped a paragraph and I’m not up to repeating it.
Jay,
No, it is an overlay of images from Mission Peninsula beach and the moon seen from our house.
Birgit:
Before I was dumped I was raving about your second image.
do you remember what you raved about?
Birgit,
I don’t think we’ve ever tried to define perception. Not that I’m suggesting it, though it might be easier than defining art. Anyway, I want to say that your image play doesn’t alter your perception, but it does alter your imagination. You won’t see a rock in the water differently, but it will send your mind in different directions than if you’d never considered it as rotated or superimposed on something.
And though, again, it’s not exactly raw perception, I’d say you do see rocks and reeds differently just by virtue of paying more attention to their colors and textures and arrangements than you probably would if you hadn’t photographed them with those things in mind. Naturally, one can be more aware in that way without being a photographer, and merely snapping pictures doesn’t so it. But making photographs thoughtfully, and considering them later as objects in themselves, certainly alters your visual experience of the world.
Thanks for the comment about Clyfford Still. Googling it led to an interesting interview with his daughters. I’m really looking forward to the Still museum. I may have to drive down to the opening.
Birgit:
No.
Birgit,
I love both moonlight and monster rock. I find that perception is just that perception and how perception is altered is limitless and unique to our own
creativity…be it in the mind or computer…but to me surely creativity , imagination and of course humor are big contributors to the product.
Birgit,
I especially like the rock.
You may be interested in looking at Andy Goldsworthy’s work. I am not a big fan of him but I do appreciate some of his work.
Thanks, D., I will google him
Karl once said that he couldn’t ‘cross-train’ by doing photography and looking at the world as a painter on the SAME day. I am still thinking about what that means.
In the above comments, Steve thinks that
But Ginger thinks that
.
I will continue musing to what extent experience affects perception. Does experience allows us perceive more clearly what is out there or does experience makes us see the world differently? Is there a difference between a ‘seeing a rock sending my mind in a different direction’ and ‘plein seeing the rock differently’?
A recent article in Science reports on a
Thus, by looking at something, I am training a neuron to see that image. Is that one answer why different painters represent the world differently?
D.
Thanks for reminding me of Andy Goldsworthy. I had forgotten his name.
I watched a couple of his ephemeral engineering feats on YouTube. I would like to visit Scotland some day.
Goldsworthy has done some work here in Ithaca. Most were ephemeral, captured by photo. More permanent are three boulders with plants growing out of them. I really like his meandering stone wall at Storm King.
The top image is wild. I love it when people mesh different aspects of nature together into a single piece.
Thanks, Brian, Moonlight is also my favorite one.
Birgit:
Seriously, the second image neatly encompasses the three elements that we often discuss: a refracted bottom, a wavy surface and a reflection or two.
In this case the reeds in the patch of reflections, all over an absolutely perfect background which could be sand or a piece of polished marble, puts me in mind of a presentation that one might find at a four star restaurant. All I can say is “Bravo” and my compliments to the chef.
But this is not what I said in the dumped paragraph.
Jay,
I bought acrylic paints on Saturday (my oils will have to wait till I can take lessions) and tried painting the second image. I started with a brownish underpainting and then put on blue dots. It looks ridiculous. But I will persevere trying to get the marble effect.
The first image tugs on my emotions, the second image excites my intellect and the third image appeals for reasons that I still have to find out about.
Birgit:
I keep liking the first image more and more. The last has the general air of an apparition, but I can’t get the magic wand out of my mind.