renaissance | The Direction of Intention

Follow The Lines [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on January 3, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

There was a time when humans didn’t know how to translate three dimensional space into a two dimensional rendering. We either had no capacity for understanding visual perspective or no reason to pursue it. Art was symbolic, purely. And then came Brunelleschi. An architect. Linear perspective, a mathematical construct, became all the artistic rage. The wilds of symbol met the dictates of the representational. Horizon lines and vanishing points, the one-two step of perspective danced into the arts in a crazy time we know as the Renaissance. A painting could pull us into its world. The ghost of the ancient Greeks whispered 15 centuries into the future.

With perspective came a wholly new set of questions. The magic of math. The study of nature. How close can we come to understanding how things work? What are the secrets driving the universe and what we see? What lurks behind and beyond the symbol? What do we not see?

The trees in Kerri’s photo are roughly the same size. The trees retreat into the distance so the furthest tree appears to be smaller, the closest tree taller. It’s an illusion that we take for granted, so steeped are we in the necessities of perspective. The smallest child with a crayon wouldn’t care or perhaps even see the distance. They’d happily scribble the symbol: tree. An older child would put down their crayon and insist that they couldn’t draw because the magic of perspective is intimidating. Trying to “capture” reality in two or three dimensions is a tall order. Trying to place yourself and others inside it is overwhelming.

On this foggy day on the coast of Lake Michigan, I admire the perfect lesson in perspective taught by the trees stretching out in front of me. The fog brings to mind string-theory and the mathematics of multiple realities existing in a single space or Stephen Hawking’s bubble theory, many many universes brushing each other as they pass. What would Brunelleschi think of that? Follow the lines of perspective far enough and it becomes necessary to sail beyond the known horizon. Expressionistic. Conceptual.

Both Picasso and Einstein broke apart our understanding of space and invited an entirely new form of perspective into our conversation. The mystic and the mathematical. Multiverse and many dimensions.

Standing in the park, fingers cold, swallowed by the dense fog, I am a lucky child with a crayon knowing that all I can manage to do is scribble.

read Kerri’s blogpost on PERSPECTIVE

like. share. support. comment. many thanks.

buymeacoffee is a an impression left by a crayon meant to let others know that someone is out there and paying attention to the lines of perspective.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Language, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: 2-D, 3-D, artistry, Brunelleschi, conceptual, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dimensional space, dimensions, Einstein, expressionistic, horizon, horizon line, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, linear perspective, math, multiverse, nature, perspective, Picasso, renaissance, secrets, space, Stephen Hawking, story, string theory, studio melange, symbol, the melange | 2 Comments »

See The Exact Center [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on April 26, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Kerri took this photograph a week ago. We’d set up our pop-up table in the middle of the woods. We had a small cooler with cheese and crackers, tabouli and chips and wine. It was cold. We needed to take off our gloves to eat a bit of our snack and then put them on again, fingertips stinging. Since she is a photography maven, I knew to stand back after setting up so she might take shots of our snack-laden table. She finished, sat, and then pointed her camera to the sky.

Despite what you see in the photo, the trees did not reach to a common center. That is an illusion. Perspective as taught in art school. The point of view of a lens. “Lookit!” she said, red fingertips holding the camera so I could see the image. “We must have found the exact center of the forest,” I thought and smiled.

I often feel like that these days. We must have found the center.

Last night, on an all-too-rare warm evening, we sat with friends on their deck. The Up North Gang. We ate dinner. We laughed. I had my first ever sip of salted caramel whiskey. Dessert as a drink. Time stood still for me and I studied the moment. I wondered if anyone on earth was as fortunate as Kerri and me.

Perspective as taught in art school. Points converge creating the illusion of distance. At one time in history, a crossroads of art and mathematics, this simple recognition was a revolution. Linear perspective. A unique point of view. The accurate portrayal of three dimensions on a two-dimensional surface was powerful – the creation of illusion, shape and distance, produced new intentions and mathematical rules.

It also changed forever the viewer. To see the illusion one must occupy the illusion of a unique center. A new psychology. It’s possible to draw a direct line of descendancy from the hard perspective of the Renaissance to our abstract expressionism. The artist’s point of view, unconscious expression without limit or rule, is all that matters. Two ends of the same pole.

I told Horatio that I am, at long last, learning to keep quiet. To share what I see when asked, and not before (he says as he writes a blogpost about what he sees). I have made a career out of too adamantly trying to get people to see what I see. My adamancy might be traced to the Renaissance and the notion that I occupy a unique center, a specific point of view that makes my illusion of shape and distance somehow privileged and necessary.

Age is helping me challenge and release my investments. It is also a grand teacher of movement and moments. Nothing stands still, especially time. The best we can do is savor the spaces between, always shifting and moving. Children become parents become grandparents. A warm night. A cold day on the trail. It matters less and less what I see and sense-make with my unique hard lines and more and more that I taste the tastes and see the colors, my lens aimed at a common center, sharing the passing moments with others.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE WOODS