The four-person exhibition Non-Objective Conversations x 4
that was in Sydney Non-Objective last year is migrating to Bendigo, to
the La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre. Four abstract artists: Louise Blyton, Magda Cebokli, Wendy Kelly and Gordon Monro, exhibition curated by Wendy Kelly.
La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre (VAC): 121 View St Bendigo (across the road from the Bendigo Art Gallery).
Tel: 5441 8724
Web: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/vac
Hours: Tuesday to Friday 10am - 5pm, weekends 12 - 5pm.
Exhibition dates: 27th March to 5th May 2013.
Opening: Wednesday 27th March, 6 - 8pm.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Friday, February 22, 2013
Exhibition in Ararat
I have an exhibition of videos in the Ararat Regional Art Gallery,
to complement a touring exhibition from the Museum of Contemprary Art
in Sydney of moving image work by Daniel Crooks, Tracey Moffatt,
Patricia Piccini and more, company I'm very happy to be in!
For my show there won't be a formal opening, but there will be a closing event on Sunday 14th April.
Arart Regional Art Gallery: Corner Vincent Street and the Western Highway, Ararat, in the Town Hall building.
Tel: (03) 5352 2836
Web: http://arts-events-tourism.ararat.vic.gov.au/ararat-regional-art-gallery
Hours: Mon - Fri: 10am - 4.30pm; Sat, Sun, public holidays: 12 - 4pm.
Exhibition dates: 14th March to 14th April 2013.
Closing event: On Sunday 14 April 2013 at 3pm. I will be presenting an illustrated talk on Generative Art, followed by celebratory drinks at 4pm.
For my show there won't be a formal opening, but there will be a closing event on Sunday 14th April.
Arart Regional Art Gallery: Corner Vincent Street and the Western Highway, Ararat, in the Town Hall building.
Tel: (03) 5352 2836
Web: http://arts-events-tourism.ararat.vic.gov.au/ararat-regional-art-gallery
Hours: Mon - Fri: 10am - 4.30pm; Sat, Sun, public holidays: 12 - 4pm.
Exhibition dates: 14th March to 14th April 2013.
Closing event: On Sunday 14 April 2013 at 3pm. I will be presenting an illustrated talk on Generative Art, followed by celebratory drinks at 4pm.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Ten Questions Concerning Generative Computer Art
I am one of six authors of a paper with the title "Ten Questions Concerning Generative Computer Art", which has been accepted for the journal Leonardo, though it will be a while before it is printed. A PDF version is available here.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Extraordinary exhibition of Australian botanical art
(I am interested in this because I live in Ballarat and am involved with the gallery.)
The Art Gallery of Ballarat has mounted an extraordinary exhibition of Australian botanical illustration, the most comprehensive ever in Australia. There are over 400 works, going back as far as William Dampier's vist to the West Australian coast in 1699, and forward to contemporary work. I found particularly interesting a sequence of works by Celia Rosser showing the stages of a drawing from the initial field sketch of a Banksia (Banksia aculeata) right through to the completed work. The delicate drawings of microscopic details of mosses by Lauren Black are also very attractive. As the exhibition points out, certainly from the mid 19th century women artists played a very important role in botanical illustration, firstly as amateurs, then as professionals.
The English and French exploratory voyages at the end of the 18th century led to Australian plants being cultivated in England and elsewhere in Europe. I was startled to see an account of the Gymea Lily (which grows wild around Sydney) in the botanical gardens of St Petersburg. Eventually the Australian colonies became well-established enough to have their own scientific establishments and produce their own botanical prints, and here Ferdinand von Mueller, scientist and first Director of the Melbourne Botanical Gardens, led the way in promoting botanical illustration. The exhibition has works representing all of the stages of interest in Australian plants, and also shows how the various techniques used for reproducing the images changed over time.
In conjunction with the exhibition there is a lavishly illustrated book with six substantial essays.
The exhibition and the book have been prepared by the Art Gallery of Ballarat, and the majority of the works come from the Gallery's own collection - altogether a remarkable achievement.
Where: Art Gallery of Ballarat, 40 Lydiard Street (North), Ballarat.
When: Until December 2, 2012.
Hours: 9am - 5pm every day.
Price: Full $12, concession $8, members of the Art Gallery of Ballarat Association have free entry.
(Entry to the permanent collection of the Gallery is free.)
The Art Gallery of Ballarat has mounted an extraordinary exhibition of Australian botanical illustration, the most comprehensive ever in Australia. There are over 400 works, going back as far as William Dampier's vist to the West Australian coast in 1699, and forward to contemporary work. I found particularly interesting a sequence of works by Celia Rosser showing the stages of a drawing from the initial field sketch of a Banksia (Banksia aculeata) right through to the completed work. The delicate drawings of microscopic details of mosses by Lauren Black are also very attractive. As the exhibition points out, certainly from the mid 19th century women artists played a very important role in botanical illustration, firstly as amateurs, then as professionals.
The English and French exploratory voyages at the end of the 18th century led to Australian plants being cultivated in England and elsewhere in Europe. I was startled to see an account of the Gymea Lily (which grows wild around Sydney) in the botanical gardens of St Petersburg. Eventually the Australian colonies became well-established enough to have their own scientific establishments and produce their own botanical prints, and here Ferdinand von Mueller, scientist and first Director of the Melbourne Botanical Gardens, led the way in promoting botanical illustration. The exhibition has works representing all of the stages of interest in Australian plants, and also shows how the various techniques used for reproducing the images changed over time.
In conjunction with the exhibition there is a lavishly illustrated book with six substantial essays.
The exhibition and the book have been prepared by the Art Gallery of Ballarat, and the majority of the works come from the Gallery's own collection - altogether a remarkable achievement.
Where: Art Gallery of Ballarat, 40 Lydiard Street (North), Ballarat.
When: Until December 2, 2012.
Hours: 9am - 5pm every day.
Price: Full $12, concession $8, members of the Art Gallery of Ballarat Association have free entry.
(Entry to the permanent collection of the Gallery is free.)
Sunday, August 26, 2012
J.W. Power's Book on the Mathematics of Pictorial Construction
J.W. Power was an Australian artist who, while at one time very
significant, seems to have fallen out of the history books. Born in
1881, he studied medicine at the University of Sydney, and then
moved to London in 1907 for further study. He was a military
surgeon during World War I, and after the war decided to become a
full-time artist, spending much time in Paris. He became a
member of the avant-garde group Abstraction-Création in
company with other leading artists in Paris, and was involved with
both cubism and surrealism.
Power left a large sum of money to the University of Sydney for the purpose of making the latest ideas and theories in art available in Australia through lectures and through the purchase of artworks. The bequest eventually led to the establishment of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney as well as the Power Institute within the University of Sydney. Power as an artist is currently attracting attention, with a major Power exhibition, in the form of a recreation of Power's solo exhibition in Paris in 1934, coming up at the University of Sydney's art gallery.
My interest in Power comes about because in 1932 he published a geometrically-based book (in Paris; both French and English versions appeared). The English version has the title The Elements of Pictorial Construction: A Study of the Methods of Old and Modern Masters. I recently had a chance to examine copies of both versions at the University of Sydney, thanks to Anthony Green, Senior Librarian of the Schaeffer Library and Ann Stephen, Senior Curator of the University of Sydney Art Collection.
I also found that the whole work (in French and English) is available online through the National Library of Australia (go to http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/ and search for "elements of pictorial construction"). However, the physical book has a unique feature: six pockets at the back, each of which contains a photograph of an artwork and one or more transparent sheets with lines drawn on them, which are to be placed over the photograph according to instructions in Power's text. These reveal features of the construction of the work, according to Power's analysis.
What is the basis of Power's work?
Power considers that he is recovering a method of construction used by the Old Masters. He starts from the idea that all the significant points in a masterpiece of painting are carefully placed. He draws horizontal and vertical lines from each such point to the edges of the painting, and considers in what proportion the edges are divided, expecting this to be significant. Apart from the midpoint of the edge, the Golden Section point (approximately 0.618) is a natural choice, but Power introduces others, including a point on the long side which is √2 or about 1.414 times the length of the short side, being the diagonal of the square on the short side. Then Power has a method of "transfer": for example, take the distance between the √2 point and the end of the long side, and mark off this distance on the short side. He even makes a second transfer of the remaining distance on the short side back to the long side. The result is a large number of horizontal and vertical lines (27 horizontal lines and 16 vertical in the case of the "Mond" Crucifixion by Raphael, in Power's first detailed analysis). Power also identifies an equal-sided nonagon (nine-sided figure) connecting significant points within the painting, and a hexagon surrounding the painting.
Power also has an idea of "movable format", the same configuration appearing in different parts of the one painting. He applies this to a Last Judgement by Rubens, with the movable configuration consisting of a perspective drawing of a cone with an inscribed square pyramid, which he sees as being used in approximately eight different positions. Having a actual piece of cellophane to move about is a great help! According to Power, the positions are not arbitrary, but each is obtained by rotating the configuration about a specific point, or a similar such move.
There are some other ideas about construction in the book as well, but the division of the edges of the painting and the "movable format" are the most important.
What do I think of the book?
Power sticks very closely to his subject of construction and does not consider colours in the book, let alone things like symbolic content; there is a complete absence of mystical waffle. The book is also clearly written and generally easy to follow. However, in my view Power has not made a convincing case for what he claims.
It is uncontroversial that large paintings were frequently first done at small scale and then transferred to a wall or panel by some process of drawing up a grid. However, as far as I know the grid was made up of equally spaced lines (extant examples indicate this). Also, although the golden section was known and used, again as far as I know there is no historical evidence for things like Power's √2 point, let alone his "transfers" of such points.
So if there is a lack of historical evidence, the evidence must be internal to the works; indeed Power says: "[The Old Masters'] studies and sketches handed down to us show very few traces of these methods, while the finished pictures show a great many."
My first comment is that Power's method is on the whole not perceptually based. We know that a division of a line in a ratio somewhere in the range 3/5 to 2/3 is perceptually attractive, and this explains the photographer's "rule of thirds". But there is no reason to suppose that the exact value 0.61803... of the golden ratio is perceptually markedly better than say 0.625 (which is 5/8). There is no perceptual reason for things like the "transfer" of twice the short part of the golden section division of the long side (which occurs in Power's analysis of Raphael's Disputa).
So we are dealing with Power's geometrical ingenuity rather than perceptual givens, and Power has provided an array of lines and construction methods that I suspect can yield a good approximation to any ratio. The question is then whether the Old Masters used geometrical ingenuity in a similar way. It is not out of the question for a Renaissance master to be playing mathematical games in a painting, certainly with the golden section, but Power has not made a good case for the Old Masters to be playing his mathematical games. There is a range of geometrical ideas that Power could have discussed and didn't. Power doesn't provide the derivations for all of the lines in his analyses, but it is notable that he doesn't discuss equal divisions beyond the midpoint: there is no mention of thirds, quarters, fifths, etc. It is also notable that there is essentially no mention of the possibility of the same configuration occurring at different scales within the same painting. In geometrical terms, Power is concerned far more with congruence than with similarity. And there are always further possibilities: for example Power introduces ellipses but doesn't mention their focal points.
The "movable format" idea is intriguing; certainly for a swirling composition like the Last Judgement by Rubens, something like it appears more appropriate than fixed horizontal and vertical lines. However, I found the use of a pyramid drawn in perspective problematic. Power is not attempting to construct a three-dimensional model of the space implied by the painting; he is simply moving the perspective drawing of the pyramid as a flat object around the surface of the painting. This makes nonsense of any perspective within the drawing of the pyramid. On the whole, Power isn't much concerned with perspective. Raphael's Disputa has lines near the bottom whose spacing is determined by perspective, not by the sort of division that Power is interested in; Power doesn't consider these lines in his analysis.
I think that Power has driven his methods much too far, seeing things that are not there; I suspect that similar methods could provide quite different analyses of the same painting. The choice of significant points and lines is of course up to the judgement of the interpreter, and I am reluctant to challenge Power on this, but in Raphael's Crucifixion, for me the nail through Christ's feet is a prominent point in the painting; Power doesn't mention it, though he does mention other less prominent points. Then I could draw diagonal lines through the angels' feet and the nail to the faces of the kneeling figures, and start looking for similar triangles, and so on. If it is possible to give two quite different geometric analyses of the same work, both are likely to be illusory. I was somewhat more convinced by Power's discussion of cubist construction, since in cubist work it is reasonable to find both simple geometric shapes and the use of plan and elevation as described by Power.
As an aside, although the title The Elements of Pictorial Construction brings to mind Euclid's Elements of Geometry, Power is not using Euclid's methods (and does not claim to use them). The nine-sided figure Power finds in Raphael's Crucifixion cannot be constructed exactly by ruler and compass. Also Power has not read all of Euclid's Elements: he refers to the "dodecahedron and icosahedron, the proportions and structure of which had then [by the later Renaissance] been worked out". But the dodecahedron and icosahedron are discussed by Euclid.
It is interesting to consider what has happened in mathematics since Power's time. Power's geometric viewpoint comes across today as far too rigid. Power was not a professional mathematician, and it is not fair to the history of mathematics to take him as representative of his era, but certainly an emphasis on more qualitative approaches such as topology has become stronger. Topology was already well established by the 1930s, but may not have been accessible to people in Power's position, or may not have been seen as relevant. However, D'Arcy Thompson's On Growth and Form, published in 1917, might have caught Power's attention. Since Power's time a major impetus away from simple formulas has come from the computer. Chaos theory, fractals, and things like strange attractors and percolation theory have all given us new geometric objects that are quite different from the cubist cone and cylinder; although these new forms have been given solid mathematical underpinnings, the computer has helped in the discovery and investigation of the phenomena. And in general the absence of simple formulas in an area of investigation is much less of an obstacle than it was.
Power left a large sum of money to the University of Sydney for the purpose of making the latest ideas and theories in art available in Australia through lectures and through the purchase of artworks. The bequest eventually led to the establishment of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney as well as the Power Institute within the University of Sydney. Power as an artist is currently attracting attention, with a major Power exhibition, in the form of a recreation of Power's solo exhibition in Paris in 1934, coming up at the University of Sydney's art gallery.
My interest in Power comes about because in 1932 he published a geometrically-based book (in Paris; both French and English versions appeared). The English version has the title The Elements of Pictorial Construction: A Study of the Methods of Old and Modern Masters. I recently had a chance to examine copies of both versions at the University of Sydney, thanks to Anthony Green, Senior Librarian of the Schaeffer Library and Ann Stephen, Senior Curator of the University of Sydney Art Collection.
I also found that the whole work (in French and English) is available online through the National Library of Australia (go to http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/ and search for "elements of pictorial construction"). However, the physical book has a unique feature: six pockets at the back, each of which contains a photograph of an artwork and one or more transparent sheets with lines drawn on them, which are to be placed over the photograph according to instructions in Power's text. These reveal features of the construction of the work, according to Power's analysis.
What is the basis of Power's work?
Power considers that he is recovering a method of construction used by the Old Masters. He starts from the idea that all the significant points in a masterpiece of painting are carefully placed. He draws horizontal and vertical lines from each such point to the edges of the painting, and considers in what proportion the edges are divided, expecting this to be significant. Apart from the midpoint of the edge, the Golden Section point (approximately 0.618) is a natural choice, but Power introduces others, including a point on the long side which is √2 or about 1.414 times the length of the short side, being the diagonal of the square on the short side. Then Power has a method of "transfer": for example, take the distance between the √2 point and the end of the long side, and mark off this distance on the short side. He even makes a second transfer of the remaining distance on the short side back to the long side. The result is a large number of horizontal and vertical lines (27 horizontal lines and 16 vertical in the case of the "Mond" Crucifixion by Raphael, in Power's first detailed analysis). Power also identifies an equal-sided nonagon (nine-sided figure) connecting significant points within the painting, and a hexagon surrounding the painting.
Power also has an idea of "movable format", the same configuration appearing in different parts of the one painting. He applies this to a Last Judgement by Rubens, with the movable configuration consisting of a perspective drawing of a cone with an inscribed square pyramid, which he sees as being used in approximately eight different positions. Having a actual piece of cellophane to move about is a great help! According to Power, the positions are not arbitrary, but each is obtained by rotating the configuration about a specific point, or a similar such move.
There are some other ideas about construction in the book as well, but the division of the edges of the painting and the "movable format" are the most important.
What do I think of the book?
Power sticks very closely to his subject of construction and does not consider colours in the book, let alone things like symbolic content; there is a complete absence of mystical waffle. The book is also clearly written and generally easy to follow. However, in my view Power has not made a convincing case for what he claims.
It is uncontroversial that large paintings were frequently first done at small scale and then transferred to a wall or panel by some process of drawing up a grid. However, as far as I know the grid was made up of equally spaced lines (extant examples indicate this). Also, although the golden section was known and used, again as far as I know there is no historical evidence for things like Power's √2 point, let alone his "transfers" of such points.
So if there is a lack of historical evidence, the evidence must be internal to the works; indeed Power says: "[The Old Masters'] studies and sketches handed down to us show very few traces of these methods, while the finished pictures show a great many."
My first comment is that Power's method is on the whole not perceptually based. We know that a division of a line in a ratio somewhere in the range 3/5 to 2/3 is perceptually attractive, and this explains the photographer's "rule of thirds". But there is no reason to suppose that the exact value 0.61803... of the golden ratio is perceptually markedly better than say 0.625 (which is 5/8). There is no perceptual reason for things like the "transfer" of twice the short part of the golden section division of the long side (which occurs in Power's analysis of Raphael's Disputa).
So we are dealing with Power's geometrical ingenuity rather than perceptual givens, and Power has provided an array of lines and construction methods that I suspect can yield a good approximation to any ratio. The question is then whether the Old Masters used geometrical ingenuity in a similar way. It is not out of the question for a Renaissance master to be playing mathematical games in a painting, certainly with the golden section, but Power has not made a good case for the Old Masters to be playing his mathematical games. There is a range of geometrical ideas that Power could have discussed and didn't. Power doesn't provide the derivations for all of the lines in his analyses, but it is notable that he doesn't discuss equal divisions beyond the midpoint: there is no mention of thirds, quarters, fifths, etc. It is also notable that there is essentially no mention of the possibility of the same configuration occurring at different scales within the same painting. In geometrical terms, Power is concerned far more with congruence than with similarity. And there are always further possibilities: for example Power introduces ellipses but doesn't mention their focal points.
The "movable format" idea is intriguing; certainly for a swirling composition like the Last Judgement by Rubens, something like it appears more appropriate than fixed horizontal and vertical lines. However, I found the use of a pyramid drawn in perspective problematic. Power is not attempting to construct a three-dimensional model of the space implied by the painting; he is simply moving the perspective drawing of the pyramid as a flat object around the surface of the painting. This makes nonsense of any perspective within the drawing of the pyramid. On the whole, Power isn't much concerned with perspective. Raphael's Disputa has lines near the bottom whose spacing is determined by perspective, not by the sort of division that Power is interested in; Power doesn't consider these lines in his analysis.
I think that Power has driven his methods much too far, seeing things that are not there; I suspect that similar methods could provide quite different analyses of the same painting. The choice of significant points and lines is of course up to the judgement of the interpreter, and I am reluctant to challenge Power on this, but in Raphael's Crucifixion, for me the nail through Christ's feet is a prominent point in the painting; Power doesn't mention it, though he does mention other less prominent points. Then I could draw diagonal lines through the angels' feet and the nail to the faces of the kneeling figures, and start looking for similar triangles, and so on. If it is possible to give two quite different geometric analyses of the same work, both are likely to be illusory. I was somewhat more convinced by Power's discussion of cubist construction, since in cubist work it is reasonable to find both simple geometric shapes and the use of plan and elevation as described by Power.
As an aside, although the title The Elements of Pictorial Construction brings to mind Euclid's Elements of Geometry, Power is not using Euclid's methods (and does not claim to use them). The nine-sided figure Power finds in Raphael's Crucifixion cannot be constructed exactly by ruler and compass. Also Power has not read all of Euclid's Elements: he refers to the "dodecahedron and icosahedron, the proportions and structure of which had then [by the later Renaissance] been worked out". But the dodecahedron and icosahedron are discussed by Euclid.
It is interesting to consider what has happened in mathematics since Power's time. Power's geometric viewpoint comes across today as far too rigid. Power was not a professional mathematician, and it is not fair to the history of mathematics to take him as representative of his era, but certainly an emphasis on more qualitative approaches such as topology has become stronger. Topology was already well established by the 1930s, but may not have been accessible to people in Power's position, or may not have been seen as relevant. However, D'Arcy Thompson's On Growth and Form, published in 1917, might have caught Power's attention. Since Power's time a major impetus away from simple formulas has come from the computer. Chaos theory, fractals, and things like strange attractors and percolation theory have all given us new geometric objects that are quite different from the cubist cone and cylinder; although these new forms have been given solid mathematical underpinnings, the computer has helped in the discovery and investigation of the phenomena. And in general the absence of simple formulas in an area of investigation is much less of an obstacle than it was.
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