Glowing Prairie Grass and Vermeer

After the horizontal view (discussed in the last post), I turned the camera to the vertical view.   Here there’s even more to draw you in and hold your attention.

We still have the horizontal shadows with their variations.  This time, though, the lines pull you to the full view of the glowing prairie grass, the drama queen in this show.  Ta-tah!

The shape of the glow is roughly circular. A circle in a composition will dominate your attention.  Add to that the horizontal dark ellipse under the background tree and you have a play on the variation of round forms. Your brain loves that.  Then notice that that black ellipse and the glowing circle relate to each other through that tense gap between them.  Tension is good, it pulls you in.

We still have the Golden Section: red lines indicated the equal sides of the big square. In addition, a number of equal distances (greens, pinks) that create repetition in the composition, a kind of rhythm.

At this point, for good company, I’m reminded of Vermeer’s Little Street. He makes the composition run on rhythm.

The nerve of him! Here he is in the 17^th century and instead of showing off how well he can create the illusion of depth through perspective and how well he can seduce you through human anatomy and ample flesh…what does he give you?  A flat façade of a couple of buildings.  Yes, there’s a picture within the picture with a little perspective view to the women in that passage way and the cobble stones recede, granted, but only faintly and ever so casually.   There are a couple of gables in the back, but no perspective lines lead to them, so , voila, they’re part of the overall flatness.

This is a modern painting.  One of us painted this.  Makes me wanna cry.  Yes, it’s a flat surface that runs on rhythm, like a drum roll of the same distances—all over.  That’s it, I’m in tears.

You can take a strip of paper and mark off any length on this building and then move that strip around and find the same distance, over and over.  That’s rhythm.  It’s what mesmerizes you.

Johannes Vermeer, 1632-1675

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In Half

Working with a center line, whether vertical or horizontal, challenges the painter. How do you prevent this thing from becoming static?  How do you overcome the invitation to symmetry? How to you create movement?

In this painting the challenge is heightened by the choice of black vs. white. Now look what happens at the dividing line between the two fields. At (2) a large round shape that straddles both fields attracts your attention by virtue of its size, circularity and texture—it’s glued on burlap.  At (1) and (3) lines cross the divide.  These are powerful because the eye finds lines irresistible and traces them wherever they lead.

The blue line at (3) gracefully sweeps upward towards the right.  At the light red dot (4) it traces an orbital path.  Because the red rectangles at (6) suggest a stable architectural element (perhaps a window), they add a rational anchor to a universe in which amorphous planes float randomly.  At the same time the red dot perches precariously on one corner (4).  This becomes the focal point of the painting, deeply satisfying and at the same time restless.

But wait, there’s a twist in the plot.  When the artist submitted the painting to the Studio Exhibit she reversed it.  Notice that the focal point in this new orientation is one of those amorphous shapes (5). The effect is edgy.

We are deprived of the satisfaction we found previously in the red dot perched on the corner of the red rectangles. In this orientation, the red dot and the red rectangles are resting on the bottom edge, not going anywhere. They’ve settled, they lack drama.

It’s a brilliant painting.  Buy it.  Hang it, not over your couch, but in front of it. Sit.  Look at it in one orientation, then next week turn it over and look again.  Allow yourself to be unsettled. Get to know your perceptual quirkiness.

The Studio Exhibit at the Evanston Art Center will be up til January 29.

Terry Fohrman, Not Black and White.  Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 48”

All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.

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